When Andalites Depart
by Bklutz
Summary: Years after the yeerk war was finished, the andalites leave Earth, wiping all traces of their presence from Earth, except for a morphing cube. When the cube falls into the hands of a new kid, what action will he take to defend his home when a new species of alien invades on the andalite-free Earth. OC. Thought speak is shown as ( )
1. Prologue

Hi guys, this is my first attempt at a fanfic, so please send me reviews so I know if I'm doing anything wrong. By the way,this is based on an OC set after the Yeerk war. the main antagonists are going to be a new species and possibly some human enemies as well.

Chapter 1:

It was seven years after the end of the yeerk war when the andalites left. They just packed up, leaving no trace of any alien life on Earth. Everyone thought they would stick around for a bit longer, start a connection between the two planets and assist us in evolving our technology, but they were wrong.

I remember watching the last broadcast the andalites sent us from our widescreen television. I was in the middle of watching Dr Who when Matt Smith was rudely interrupted by the torso of an andalite.

(Hello, fellow humans.)

Thoughtspeak had become quite the norm over the past few years; most of us had talked to an andalite at one point, maybe on the train or at the mall. Some of the even richer people could afford the luxurious morphing technology themselves, and got the privilege of performing their very own thoughtspeak. Even if you hadn't spoken to an andalite before, there was a large chance that one was speaking on one of the hundreds of TV channels, some even hosted by andalites.

I turned my attention to the television

(We have interrupted your television programs for our farewell. The council has decided that Earth is too dangerous for our kind, therefore we will leave Earth and try to restore it to its original state.)

(Why must we leave, you ask? This is because humans need someone to pick on, someone to be in the minority, someone to look down upon. First it was women, then blacks, then gays, and now us. Having andalites targeted for bullying and attacks is not acceptable, and we would not want to disturb your fragile chain of command by introducing another layer to your pyramids.)

(Therefore, I and the other andalites have assembled our visitors and our technology and we are leaving. When your species are developed enough for spacetravel, we will return and retry our relationship with a more evolved species. Finally, we shall be issuing a full-planetary anti-morph ray, one of our most recent developments in the morphing technology. From now on, those of you who were granted morphing capabilities will find that they are no longer able to change forms. Farewell)

And then they left. That was four months ago.

…Except they left one small, major piece of technology behind.

…One factor that would be very important to me very soon.

…The morphing cube.


	2. Chapter 1

Chapter 2:

'Jason, wake up! You're wasting the day away!'

Yeah, so, that's me, Jason, tangled in my sheets at 10 in the morning. A Saturday Morning. Who actually wakes up before 12 on a Saturday? Is there even such a thing as a Saturday breakfast?

'Jason! Wake up now!'

'Alright, mum!'

Rolling sluggishly out of bed, I manage to stumble with eyes half opened into the shower. I'm pretty good looking, but still not enough to become the heartthrob of every girl at school. I have dusty brown hair that I keep short enough to avoid extreme bed hair, and pastel brown eyes that turn beer-bottle brown during the night. I'm more fit than unfit, and I'm able to pass through PE at school with A's for every component without drawing too much of a sporting reputation around myself.

A knock on the bathroom door forces me to hurry up.

'Come on, Jason! I need you to help your father build the back fence again! Toby drove into it last night.'

Turning of the shower and pulling a towel around my waist, I open the bathroom door to discover that my mum has moved out of my bedroom and into Toby's, trying to wake my older brother up, an even more impossible task.

Throwing on some bright green shorts and a white singlet, I creep down the spiral staircase, past my mum, who is feverishly trying to push Toby out of his own bed. Grabbing someone's piece of toast from the toaster, I slip into my flip-flops and out the front door. Maybe someone else will be awake at this unreasonable hour.

I stop into 7-11 and buy myself a small Slurpee, and sit on the bench outside. After about 15 minutes of scanning facebook and texting, all I get is 5 texts of 'I'm still asleep' or 'go back to bed!' Maybe someone will be at the beach.

Walking through town to get to the beach, I begin to notice posters of warning signs

'Danger! Loose pit-bull in these suburbs. Always travel in groups to guarantee safety'

Hmm…. That sounds dangerous. What harm can a pit-bull do? Stopping at a bus stop, I pull out my IPhone and quickly Google the pit-bull incidents.

I'm quickly rewarded of numerous stories of a rogue pit-bull escaping from an unknown property and attacking strangers on the street. This pit-bull would break a few bones, bite a few limbs, and then take a chomp out of your pockets and leave. Police have tried to track the dog down, but even police dogs mysteriously lose scent of him around garden sheds and behind fences.

A pick-pocketing pit-bull? Patting my pockets, I absentmindedly check if everything is still there. IPhone, wallet, sunnies, earphones, check. Anyways, If I was missing anything, I'd have noticed from the bite marks in my pants and the broken legs from the pit-bull attacks.

Passing a small alleyway, I hear crying and screaming. Sprinting up the back roads, I find the source of the sound coming from an abandoned back-yard.

'Give me your wallet'

'No! I only have fifteen bucks anyway! It won't buy anything!

'I don't care! Money is money! Hand it over, or I'll have to resort to _desperate_ measures.'

Peering through the tattered fence, I see a small boy being held up by the collar to the side fence. The other person holding him up has his free hand in a fist and is pulling it back, preparing for a rough blow to the kid's stomach.

'Hey, put the kid down' I stand out from behind the fence and hold my IPhone out in front of me, pretending to be filming while I didn't have enough time to open up the camera feature.

Crudely dropping the kid onto the ground, the larger boy snarls at me and slinks into the front yard, hands in his pockets. I don't recognise him from my school.

Running over to the kid, I quickly check him for broken bones and bruised areas. He's fine.

'Are you okay? Did the guy hit you anywhere?'

The kid shakes his head between sobs, and I use his collar to wipe away the tears from his face. Taking his hand, we exit the property from the back yard and walk back onto the street.

The kid has calmed down, and turns left back the way I came. I still want to head to the beach, so I say my goodbyes and head right. That's when I come across an ambulance. It's another pit-bull attack. This time, he didn't steal anything; it was just for fun… or to release anger.

Deciding that it may be better to stay home this weekend, I turn around and start walking home. That's when I hear the familiar cries again.

Running back to the alleyway, I arrive just in time to see the small kid back on the ground, handing his wallet over to the boy.

'Hand it back, now' I run onto the property, completely forgetting to pretend to film the encounter.

Tossing the wallet back to the kid's feet, the boy turns to face me.

The small kid runs behind me and onto the street, back home.

'You think you could take me?'

Looking him up and down, I take a quick estimate. He's on the larger side of the population, but could still look like he could throw a good punch. The shaven hair and backwards flat top cap are obviously to help his bad-boy appearance.

'Yeah, I could take you'

Then he reaches into his backpack, and pulls out a blue square object. Throwing it at my chest, I put my hands out to protect me.

The object hit's sharply into my hands and falls onto the ground.

'Well then, you'd better start thinking quicker. I think I'm going to have to settle for a little more than just a few broken legs.'

I look down at the object he threw and I can barely breathe. It's a morphing cube. A newer model, its smaller, thinner, about the size of a Rubiks Cube, but it's still the same thing. The andalites probably forgot about it, missed it when leaving four months ago.

A gross slurping sound breaks me from my trance and directs my attention to the boy. To my utter amazement, he's morphing. I've seen it before on television, there's no doubt to what he's doing, and he's morphing. The horrific part is what he is morphing to.

A pit-bull. The pit-bull. One of the largest I've ever seen, and I've heard stories of these creatures. A dangerous one can kill a man and take down a fully grown cow. This one is much larger than 'dangerous', it was at least the size of a human.

Reaching the height of my belly button, I manage to watch the boy's face meld into the pit-bulls, long fangs spurting out of his lips.

(You have two minutes, then it's my turn for revenge)


	3. Chapter 2

'Huh?'

I'm slightly confused. What does he want me to do? Fight him? As a pit-bull? And why did he give me this cube?

(Let me explain. Morphing technology has 'advanced' over the past seven years. As you can see, it has changed size, become more portable, easier to carry. That's not the only change that Andalite scientists have worked on. You see, the rich people kicked up such a fuss, travelling to exotic countries to pet wonderful new animals, and then gaining morphing power afterwards. What a waste! If only they could go back and access those morphs now! With these 'richies' becoming so whiney, Andalites improved the cube, so now when you touch it, you get morphs from all animals you've touched over the past three months! They wanted to extend the time period, have any animal you've ever touched, but they could only stretch the cube back three months before the cube collapses upon itself. They've also improved the cube to suit these new human clothes. Pockets, shoes, even some jackets can now be included in morphs. That's how I do it. This pit-bull is my old neighbours that died two months ago. Nobody can locate it, because it technically isn't even alive anymore! After I steal a pocket, I morph human, put my 'findings' in my pockets, and then fly out of here. If you think you can take me in this morph, let's see what you got! I've got power! I'm the only morpher left on earth! )

Morphs? From three months ago? What do I have that can take this guy? It's not like I casually stroked a tiger last week, or rode an elephant three months ago. The only dog I can even recall petting is my grandmother's poodle.

My first necessity is the morphing cube. As soon as I pick that up, he'll have a reason to attack me. He's not going to kill me if I'm powerless, but he's not going to let me leave regardless. It's the classic 'won't harm an unarmed man' concept, although I'm sure he'll still break a few bones.

In my mind, I form a plan. Bending down slowly, I reach out to touch the cube. Pit-bull cocks his head to the side, watching my every move. As my hand comes into contact with the cube, I feel a slight shiver run up my arm, tingling up my elbow and through my shoulder, disappearing into my torso.

(Thirty seconds, you'd better hurry up with your morph)

I don't dare close my eyes, but I slowly stand up, and replay the interview with the original animorph Cassie in my head.

"Some of us can slightly control what we morph first, on numerous times we found ourselves morphing birds when we needed wings desperately, but we had to survive through growing a beak, feathers, new legs, rearranging our organs before we had the wings we desired. Over time, we found that if we took a deep breath and focused on just the wings, we'd have our much sought-after limbs before the rest of our morph was complete. Although, this was sometimes quite difficult when we were being shot at by hordes of –"

_Wings._ I willed my back to transform. I won't have enough time to complete a full morph before he attacks, but if I can hide my morph as much as possible, I'd have a larger chance of surviving.

_Wings_. I feel my singlet swirling into my skin, forming one layer of skin. Keeping my hand firmly around the cube, I hold my arms to my side, trying to hide as much of my morph as possible.

_I won't be able to keep this cube. That was his plan. I'm just target practise. Give a kid a weapon, and then destroy him before he gets away. It's risky on his behalf, but he's had much practise at this._

I feel wings start to sprout from my back. That's where I'm going to catch him off guard. Wings? From my back? What type of bird is that? Pit-bull would've expected I'd try to fly out of here, and the morphing from arms to wings would've warned him of this escape attempt.

My back starts to thicken, grow black with plated armour.

(Ready or not, here I come)

He lopes forward, mouth open in a harsh snarl. This is where I lose the cube. Aiming straight at the pit-bulls face, I throw the cube.

Catching him off guard, the pit-bull is flung off his feet, but only barely. In the seconds that it takes for him to recompose himself and cover the short distance between us, I've already grown two more legs and my face has melted into its new shape.

He pounces blindly at my chest just as I shrink down to the size of a rat.

Still shrinking, I feel the last few changes of my morph finalise.

(A fly?! Morph out, coward! How do you expect to have a fighting chance now?)

(A fighting chance isn't what I'm looking for)

I see a paw swing towards me. I kick off with my fly wings and easily scoot out of reach. The fly's increased heart rate has improved my reaction time, effectively putting me into a constant slow-motion.

Another paw is dodged, another. This is too easy. The next swing comes, but this one seems slightly different.

As he swings once more, I can see the changes in his paw. He's growing fingernails. He's growing fingers. I can see his fur, shrinking back into his skin. He's morphing back. Morphing something more suited for catching a fly.

It's time to leave. Swirling into the air, I locate the nearest fence and fly over, then the next fence, then the next one, then the road. I continue for 30 minutes until I morph back in someone's front yard. Looking to the sky, I can see a blackbird methodically checking each backyard, five blocks away. Walking onto the street, I head back home. Kate, my best friend, needs to hear of this.


	4. Chapter 3

This chapter is from Kate's point of view, I just wanted to introduce her before I include her in the story. Also, I was getting bored with Jason.

Chapter 3:

I sat on the edge of the couch, the teacher's voice droning over my head. "Blah, blah, blah, uniform, blah, blah, homework, blah, blah, blah." Mum seemed to be listening, but I could tell that she was just as interested as me. She had those same glassy unblinking eyes when she wasn't paying attention, and her head was continuously nodding, just like what she does at home to pretend that she cares. She was probably paying more attention to the broken ceiling fan than this teacher.

I was here for my 'introduction' to the school. First class had already come and finished, and second class started twenty minutes ago. I had no idea how much longer this old fart was going to keep mumbling the rules, I'm pretty sure this school had more guidelines than the jail in town. At least there the jailers could have some self-expression, maybe in the form of a tattoo or a piecing. Mum had to go out and buy me long socks to cover my tattoo before I came here. She said that I would get expelled if I expose that to the other kids.

My stomach grumbled under my dress, twisting the fabric under my crossed arms.

"I, uh, I gotta go to the loo" I interrupted.

The old lady stopped her constant slur of words to pause and look at me.

"The girl's room is out that door, to the left, then the right, pass room 221B, 222B, 223B, oh, and I think that there is 222C on the right. And if you pass 226B, you've gone too far, or is it 225B? Maybe it's in the D sector. Or is it – "

"Thanks" The door was already closed behind me, leaving mum to face the ancient beast by herself.

I turned left and headed down the corridor to the left. Grey lockers were lined up the sides of the room, standing as tall as the roof itself. I took out a low-carb muesli bar mum gave me and started munching on it as I explored. I took a second to peek in one of the classrooms, 223.

A balding man stood at the front of the roo m, cramming equations onto the whiteboard with a faded marker. Most of the children were asleep. Just like my old schools; an old teacher teaching children who are more interested in what their dinners are going to be.

I wriggle the muesli bar out of its wrapper and throw it in an empty locker. The squirming in my stomach gets more agitated, telling me to hurry up. I try to remember the directions to the bathroom when a young girl walks around the corner, a strip of toilet paper embarrassingly trailing behind her shoe. Bingo, I think to myself, and follow where the girl came from.

I reached the faded-blue colour of the bathroom door and used a nudge of my shoulder to swing the door open. I crawled down on my hands and knees, my heavy necklace swinging down to clink on the dirty tiles. I check under the cubicles for any feet, just to make sure that I'm alone. Satisfied that I'm by myself, I walk over to the row of sinks, put my handbag next to one furthest from the door and study myself in the mirror.

I had a very pale face, which is strange, because mum doesn't (when she's not covered in makeup). I had my dad's bright blue eyes and his stubby nose, but mum's small mouth and ears that stuck out like monkey ears. My black hair was straight and reached the top of my dress, and although the school policy was to have hair tied back at all times, I only had the small braid my mum did during breakfast.

My dress was a mixed colour of pale yellows, greens and pinks. One of mum's friends owns a shop where they make weird looking clothes, so our wardrobes are stacked with the stuff. My arms were weighed down from the mass of bracelets, jingling with every move. I made my necklace, looking through old Salvos boxes to see what I could stick on a chain. Right now my necklace consists of a broken toy car, the chain poking through the windscreen and coming out of where the back wheels should be. I fix up my dress and a white rat falls out, landing on my sandal.

Mike is a lovely rat; he's very affectionate and loves to listen to me. He scrambles up my leg and onto my shoulder. I could feel his pointed claws through my clothes, and the weight of his tail heavily swings against my body. When he reaches my shoulder, he snuffles into my ear with a twitchy nose. I call this his rat-kisses. His nose is cold and wet, and his whiskers tickle my neck like a feather boa.

The most fascinating part about Mike is his eyes. Most of the time, you see pictures of white lab rats with scary red eyes, making them look like the possessed pet of a witch. Mike's eyes are dark green, just like the colour of The ocean. His eyes are the main reason I bought him. I like being different, and Mike stood out from the other rats; he was like me.

Mike creeps down my arm and into the sink, sniffing the cold water tap first, then the hot water. He flinches and blinks when a drop of water falls on his nose. Scrambling out of the sink, he scuttles over to the mirror to admire himself.

I take one last bite out of my muesli bar and throw the rest to Mike. He scampers over to it and perches on top, taking nibbles from between his toes. I pick up Mike and the bar and drop him in my bag. There, now he'll be more comfortable and less distracting. I sigh, take one last look into the mirror to fix my hair, and leave the bathroom. Maybe by now the teacher has finished her ramble.

I stop in the doorway when a vibration in my bag startles Mike. He claws his way up my arm, completely forgetting to retract his claws.

'It's okay, Mike, It's just my phone'

I show him the old Nokia to reassure him. After sniffing the phone and determining that it is safe, Mike dives back into the bag.

Who could be texting me now? I open my phone to discover it's a text from my best friend from my old school, Jason.

- smth major happened last weekend. U free after school? Its Urgent. Need to talk ASAP-


	5. Chapter 4

Chapter 4:

**Kate**

School passes at a break-neck speed. By break-neck speed, I mean so slow I could've broken my neck to just finish the day. After escaping the torturous introduction from the prehistoric dinosaur, I had to endure an hour of impossibly difficult maths, an hour of impossible easy English, and then for PE, I had no gear so I had an hour of standing on the sidelines and blowing a whistle. Oh the joys of high school.

I planned on taking the bus home to get changed, maybe get a handful of pellets for Mike, but instead, I was rudely shoved onto a different bus, one out of town and into the city. See, the city is only an hour out of my town. It's larger, and has a zoo and a theme park called 'the Gardens'. Their most famous attraction popped up 8 years ago; a few months after the original animorphs went public. A guided tour of the back entrances to the main exhibits followed by a meet and greet with Marco's famous morph, the silverback gorilla, plus one lucky person each morning and afternoon to be able to stick their hand out of the protected area and feed Big Jim a shiny red apple. Outside, the tour is finalised with a lengthy display outside of local artists' interpretation of famous battles held at the Gardens, with detailed signs and knowledgeable tour guides rounding up with a speech of the hard times the animorphs struggled through.

'Hey babe, let's take this ride back to my place.'

The creepy voice down the back of my neck sent shivers down my spine and cold bumps rippled through my arms. It could only be one person.

'Jason!'

I swivelled my arms in the doorway of the bus and threw my arms around his neck, throwing him off balance with a much-missed hug.

'Where have you been? I haven't seen you since last term!'

'Yeah, well that happens when someone takes a trip to South America for a month!'

'Sorry, I thought of you every day I was there!'

'You thought of me, every day, for real?'

'Okay, maybe just once or twice.'

'Are you sure?'

'Maybe just the once then.'

'Hmmm?'

'Okay, but you can't blame me! It was South America! It's the land of poisonous frogs and deadly animals around every corner!'

'Just stop making my pathetic holidays here at home seem even more pathetic. Quick, on the bus!.'

'Where are we going? Mums expecting me at home before 6:30' I was still confused. What does Jason want me to do?

'We're going to the Gardens'

And that's when he told me. In whispers, at the front of the bus, barely four rows away from the nearest passengers, a group of elderly women engrossed in the gossip of their sons' and daughters' lives.

'So, you can morph?'

'Yep.'

'And you were attacked by a boy who is secretly the crazy pit-bull, and who gives people morphing powers for _target practise?_'

'Yep.'

'And you're the only person who's managed to escape him?'

'Well, he didn't exactly mention anyone else. I just assumed he killed all others before me.'

'_Killed? _Don't you think that's a bit extreme? Gosh, Jason, he's only a kid. Have you considered anything else?'

'I didn't really-'

'Jason! You're always assuming things. What if he has a way of getting rid of morphing power? What if there's a secret anti-morph gun in his back pocket? Don't you think that seems a bit more plausible then death?'

'Fine! I didn't think things very well, but I survived, and I don't think this guy should be mauling people like that. I want to start a new generation of animorphs, you and me.'

'With just the two of us and only one of us being a morpher? I think this new generation of animorphs will look quite pathetic compared to the celebrities before us. Plus, there's no yeerks left, no aliens. There's no need for animorphs.'

'We can figure the details out later, for now, we need to stop pit-bull boy, and I need your help getting morphs.

Jason bounds off the bus as soon as the doors slide open. He looks ecstatic, bounding down the pathway to the Gardens gate. I can just imagine his current thought process. _ Oh my God! I'm finally a superhero! I should get a cape! Can I morph a cape? Will Kate be my sidekick? I wonder how many super villains I can put in jail! I should get a catchphrase!_

I grab Jason by his backpack to slow him down.

'Jason. Think straight. You need to slow down. This is a serious matter you've stumbled upon. Not some game. You don't get to wear a mask, you're not like the other animorphs; you're alone. No other people to back you up in a fight. I'm not going to be fighting behind you, I can't morph. I don't want my face in security cameras. I'll get caught. I'll be stopped. Who can back you up in a fight? Not me. Not any human.'

'I know that. I may be rash, but I do think some things through. That's why I'm going to make you a morpher too.'

I stand there, mouth open as my grip loosens on his bag. He shakes himself free and grinning, leaps to the gate. Me, an animorph? How?

Do you think Jason will make me wear a cape?


	6. Chapter 5

**KATE**

Chapter 5:

'Jason. Stop.'

Jason stops after walking through the gate and slowly turns on his heels, an exasperated sigh on his face.

'What?'

'We'll need a plan. You can't just walk in and touch dangerous animals without permission, or at least, without a backup plan if you get caught'

'So, what did you have in mind?'

'You sit here, and use your IPhone to google what you can find on the original animorphs first trip to the Gardens. Oh, and give me $20, I need to buy something.'

Jason slumps down onto a nearby bench and hands me a crumpled note. He takes out his IPhone and starts flicking through it half-heartedly. I can tell I was a major buzz kill, but he'd thank me when he isn't in pieces over some exotic habitat.

I come back 10 minutes later with a handful of hotdogs and a bag full of apples.

'You got hungry? I thought the money was for our 'project'? How are you going to eat all of that?'

'Don't you remember? Cassie lured Big Jim to the door with an apple. Do you expect all the animals to be waiting patiently at the door, ready to be acquired?'

Jason just smiled and bit a mouthful of bread and hotdog from my hand.

'Need a hand carrying those?' he says with a toothy grin and cheeks full of food.

I hand over the hotdogs and pull out a map of the gardens.

'I've only been here once. Jason, do you know where the Animorphs tour starts?'

'They recently made the entrance over here, near the bathrooms, but I was at the rollercoaster half last month, and I saw a zookeeper enter a door behind that souvenir shop when I was on the Mega-drop.'

We walked to the door and found it sealed with a key card lock.

'Great. Good planning, Kate. What now?'

I was much more prepared than he thought. Shuffling through my bag, I fished out my key card and with a brisk swipe, opened the door.

'How did you…'

I smiled and tapped on my nose. Jason didn't seem to understand until he looked at my bag, or rather, the snout sniffling out of my bag.

'Michelangelo, you sneaky ninja. That is some magic training you've done to that rat there.'

'I told him to nip it off a keeper's belt at the front gate. Thought it could come in handy.'

I shut the door behind me with an echoing clang.

'Jason, the plan is, we open a door slightly, check what's inside, and use some food to keep it occupied while you acquire it. The mistake the originals made was that they didn't have enough morphs; they just got them when it seemed necessary. If we acquire everything in sight, we'll be prepared for any scenario.'

'Acquire everything?'

'Everything.' I say, with a definite nod of my head.

'Then, may I?'

Jason gestured towards my bag. Reaching through the open zipper, he pulls out a squirming Mike. Suddenly, Mike slows down. His ears droop, and his chin relaxes against Jason's wrist. He looks like when he managed to steal some sips from Mum's champagne, and ended up drunk in my hands.

Gingerly slotting Mike through the zips in the bag, we take a few steps through the corridor. Eventually we came to an intersection where the corridor branched off into left and right paths.

'We were right next to the souvenir shop, so that means that that way is….' I pointed down the left path.

'It's the north American section. Down the right way would lead us to big cats and African giants.'

Jason started to walk down the path to the right. I stopped him yet again with a tug on his hoodie.

'Let's start small. It's better to be prepared first.'

Jason made to argue, but I could see the logic of my plan settle down in his brain.

'Okay, let's find something a little less harmless than a tiger.'

We started walking, but we quickly noticed a flaw in our plan. The doors that lined the corridors weren't marked. We expected a large label on each door, marking out each animal, but all we could find were numbers. We quickly arranged the plan.

'Here, we'll start with this door. You open the door and hold it steady, and I'll check inside to see what's inside. I'll then lure the animal out with the food, and you can acquire it.'

Leaning his shoulder against the door to steady it, Jason slowly eased the door open. Peering through the gap, I could see the front fence through a wall of thick foliage. The fence is a mesh wall that reaches the roof.

Quickly scanning my brain, I make an educated guess at what type of animal could live in here._ It's too small for a moose, a lot of trees and easy to hide in. The front wall reaches the roof. What does that mean, can this animal jump, or climb very high or something?_

Holding out an apple, I tap it on the wall beside the door, calling the animal. It's not too long until I see a black mask peer through the top branches. It's a racoon. I breathe a sigh of relief, I was terrified to face a dangerous animal on the first try.

'Jason, it's a racoon.'

'What do they eat?'

'Plants and animals. Fish, eggs, birds, insects. I'm not entirely sure an apple will work here. Pass me a hotdog.'

I take the sausage out of the buns and wiggle it in my outstretched hand. As the racoon cautiously comes closer, I slowly draw my hand in, sneakily changing my reach of the food. When the racoon arrives to the food, Jason can reach in and touch it easily.

'Get ready, Jason.'

I place the sausage on the ground and step back, taking Jason's place holding the door. Jason crouches down, eagerly rolling up his sleeve.

The racoon crawls on top of the sausage, snuffling its ends with a twitchy nose until it decides it's safe to eat. It's barely taken one bite before Jason's hand darts out, putting the raccoon into a hypnotised trance.

Jason steps back and stands up. I go to close the door, but Jason sticks his foot in the way.

'Your turn, Kate.'

'But I don't have morphing abilities, I can't acquire.'

'The morphing technology has changed; you start out with any animal you've touched in the last three months.'

Taking his word for it, I quickly reach down and stroke the racoon a few times. The racoon just starts to wake out of its trance when I step back and the door is closed again.

'Are you sure I'll be able to morph racoon when I get morphing power now?'

'I could morph fly, couldn't I? It'll work, but only if you get morphing power in the next three months.'

We move like this slowly through the section. We quickly progress through the North American side, acquiring a porcupine, moose, bison and a bobcat. We figured that a few of the other native animals we could find at the Cassie Rehabilitation Centre, made in honour of the original animorph's hideout.

'Come on, Kate, we need some firepower.'

'Maybe if we could find some wolves around here, or-'

'No, I want something larger. Two wolves aren't going to be as scary unless they're with a tiger and a grizzly bear. Cassie only used a wolf because she wasn't as keen on the whole fighting business, and she was easily backed up by the others. We need real firepower.'

This time, Jason took be by the arm and led me to firepower. I had to agree with him, we won't be able to fight crime as bison and slightly larger than normal cats. We needed something that didn't squeak like a bath toy, something that could give a bone shattering roar without having to open its mouth.

'Jason, what section are we in? I'm lost.'

'I don't know. Let's try this door.'

Opening the door, we look out into a harmless habitat. With only a few trees, the fence could be easily jumped over by anyone tall enough. Scattered around perfectly round boulders were scraps of lettuce and tomatoes. Nobody seemed to be interested with this habitat, I could see no viewers, but I still felt horribly exposed without the thick foliage.

'I don't see anything; it looks like someone ate a salad messily and left. '

'Kate, they're the boulders.'

They're the boulders? I look closely at the base of the rocks and see two claws poke out. On closer inspection, I can see the rough pattern imprinted on the shells. It's a Galapagos tortoise.

'Don't bother, they'd be useless. Come on, let's find that firepower.'

'Hey, you said it yourself; we should be prepared for anything.'

Jason squeezed past me and acquired the closest tortoise. I reached after him and gave a quick pat to the tortoise's head.

'Let's keep looking. We aren't leaving this place without some actual firepower.'

That's when the golf cart came, loaded with two menacing security guards in their brown polo shirts and brown caps. I looked for an exit, but the closest turn off in the tunnel was at least ten doors away. I tried to sink into the doorway, but Jason hadn't noticed them yet. Desperately trying to get his attention while still keeping quiet, I hissed at him.

'What?'

'Hey, what are you kids doing back here? This part isn't even on animorphs tour!'

'Run!'

Sprinting down the corridor, we reached the turning point with adrenaline starting to kick in. The golf cart had easily caught up half of the lead we had on them. They'd catch us unless we manage to get rid of the cart.

'Split up!'

'What?'

'They can't drive after us both. Meet at the park bench from before in 20 minutes.'

Without another word, I sprinted down the track to the right. I could only hope that Jason took the path to the left.

The golf cart came to a menacing halt at the intersection. I heard feet jump out of the cart, and run after Jason. Then, the engine whirred back to life, and I was running from one guard in a cart. Just my luck, the slowest runner out of the two of us, and I have to be chased by a machine.

At the next intersection, I turn right again, and come to a long corridor lined with doors and finishing in a dead end. I take thirty steps before crashing to the left and bursting through a door. Closing the door behind me, I hold my breath and look around.

The trees here are so thick with vines and ferns that I can barely see two metres in front of me. I don't like it. I take a few steps into the bush. It's a large area, and I can just see the mesh roof above the trees. That must mean this enclosure is holding a climbing animal.

I absentmindedly zip up my bag. I don't want Mike getting out in this enclosure. As I finish zipping the bag, the zipping sound continues, sending chills down my spine. No, it's not a zipping sound, but purring. I look up, following my ears and I see a black mass of fur, curled up on a tall rock ledge above the very door I walked in through. I can't make out a full body shape, but I can take a hunch of what it is, and as I look closer, I can determine from the sharp paws, the pointy ears and the shiny whiskers that it is as I feared; a black panther, curled into a deep sleep.

I do need a battle morph, but I can't send an animal into an acquiring trance like Jason. I'm going to have to perform either a hit and run or use my brain. I choose my brain.

I look down to the mottled floor, covered in dead leaves and sticks. Around the thick tree trunks, there are a few ferns and long grasses. I take hold of a strand of grass about the length of my arm, and pull it out from the roots. Standing in front of the closed door, I stretch out my arm above me and reach towards the beast. Using the grass, I guess where the nose is, hidden in a bulk of black fur and shadow. Then I make contact with the nose.

I can tell I found the nose because the grass shivers with the panther's breath. Even his breath shakes with power. I reach into my bag with my free hand, and grasp an apple with sweaty fingers. I need to wake him up more. I pull back my hand, and throw the apple against a near tree.

SPLOOSH

Bits of apple fly everywhere, including my eye, but I don't even blink. The panther's ears have pricked up out of his body. I reach into my bag again. I pull out another apple.

SPLOOSH

This time, the panther opens his sleepy eyes halfway. He looks at the apple covered tree with boredom and curiosity, but he doesn't see me, hidden almost directly below him. He closes his eyes and tries to go back to sleep.

I throw my last apple.

SPLOOSH

The panther is beginning to get a little annoyed. His tail unfurls from his body, and starts to swish up and down. He doesn't open his eyes, trying to get back to sleep. I tickle his nose with my grass again, and his tail starts to beat more furiously with annoyance. His tail eventually falls off the ledge, into the path of the door and reaching the top of my head.

Bingo.

I drop the grass and reach out with my arm to touch the tail. It's soft, clean, and tidy. Each fur is lined up with meticulous perfection, ending with a slightly rounded point at the tip of the tail. I stroke the tail, and it swings to the left, I try to grab it as it swings right, but it moves out of my reach again. I brace myself for its imminent return, and grab it with both hands as it passes back. Mesmerised by the tail, the pure power under my fingertips, I don't notice the Panther raise its head and yawn.

Its only until the panther stands up and the tail retracts to the top of the ledge that I realise it's awake. The panther looks at me with curious eyes. I feel around for the door handle, eyes glued to the centre of its head. Remembering a trick I learned with scary dogs, I reach down and pick up a fist-sized rock. Dogs are supposed to notice you have a weapon, and keep their distance. I have no idea if it'll work with a panther, but he seems to stay where he is as I walk through the door and close it behind me.

The security guard is further down the corridor, methodically checking each door on the right. I creep back to the intersection, and walk on the balls of my feet down the way we came.

Where was the exit? I can't remember. I need a way out. Then I remember a door that could be an exit, if someone was tall enough.

I think I find the right door, and open it wide, expecting a crowd of harmless tortoises. Instead, I'm greeted with a wrinkly, grey, enormous bum and a pile of fresh poo only 50 centimetres from my sandals.

At least I wasn't greeted with the other end of this animal; I don't think I could take another near-death experience any time soon. Feeling slightly stupid, I reach out and pat the most dignified part of the rhino's body I could find; his left but cheek, well away from his crack. I make a silent vow to tell Jason that I had an encounter with the rhino's flank, or something he can't make fun of me for. Patting a rhino bum isn't exactly on my list of heroic tasks from a superhero.

I close the door and scoot to the left, opening the next door. I smile a relief as I find myself among the friendly tortoises. I jump over the fence and head back towards the park bench. I consider going back in to look for Jason, but I decide that he'll find a way out himself, and I could spend hours trying to find him in that labyrinth.

Instead I hold my phone in my lap, anticipating either a text from Jason saying he got caught and is being taken to the police office or a greeting from him in person. I take out Mike and play with him, letting him curl around and find a nice resting place in my dress pocket.


	7. Chapter 6

Chapter 6:

**JASON**

'Split up!'

'What?'

'They can't drive after us both. Meet at the park bench from before in 20 minutes.'

I quickly calculate Kate's plan. So far she's been right, and a golf cart can't split up and run after two different people. I run off to the left as I head Kate's soft sandals pad off into the right corridor. I check over my backpack to see a security guard heading off after me. I feel a moment of relief as I realise that I don't have to race the golf cart, but then I realise that Kate, the slower runner has to deal with him.

After a quick left and right turns at intersections and hiding in an enclosure with a very startled deer-like creature (which I later found out to be a sable), I managed to lose my pursuer. After quickly acquiring the sable, partly for the DNA, partly to subdue him before he recovers from his unexpected visit; I step out onto the tunnel with the swagger of a hero who escaped his second chaser.

_Firepower, _I thought to myself, _I won't leave here without something that can kick a pit-bull's behind to next Thursday._ I'll try to find my way back to where we started. Then I can turn the other way to African giants.

Looking through doors to guide me, I acquire anything that is easily accessible from the doorway. I dropped all the hotdogs trying to get the security guard off my trail, so I no longer have any bait. I acquire a warthog, a small ferret creature, and a kangaroo before I open a door into the zebra enclosure, my first clue that I had reached the African giants section.

Closing the door to the zebra section, I spot a door with a laminated A4 paper blu-tacked to the front. It was a list for feeding methods. The next feed is in 20 minutes.

'Wow. That is a lot of meat.' I say to myself. It can only mean one thing; its perfect firepower.

I open the door and step through into a dusty, grassy African plain to be greeted with one of the strongest jaws in the animal kingdom, flying towards my neck.

Barely reacting, I pull my hand up under the monster's chin and push upwards. For a normal person, this would've made no difference except maybe realign the aim of the attack towards the face, but mixed with the acquiring trance, I managed to push the jaws out of the way, off the side. The creature brushes against my shoulder as it passes, and slumps into the door, sealing it shut.

I take a good look at my newest and possibly most dangerous attacker. It's a spotted hyena, the largest species of hyena there is. I haven't fully acquired the beast, I didn't have my hand on him for long enough, and aren't you supposed to know what the animal is to be able to concentrate on acquiring it? I'm not sure of the details, but I need to acquire it to be able to get out of here.

I take my stance, hands ready to acquire the hyena when it attacks again when the rest of the pack comes, creating a menacing circle around me. Maybe they'll be too full of me by the time the feeding comes in 20 minutes.

The first one jumps at me, coming from the side, aiming for my shin. I swing my backpack, still full of textbooks from school. Knocking the hyena back I received a squeaky yelp in return. I take its place in the circle, placing my back against a rocky wall. The circle of hunters closes in on me, hyenas to my left, right and straight ahead, and a rock wall behind me; I'm trapped.

They're a bit wary now, I've been able to knock aside two from their pack. I guess that they're running on instinct; not many of them would've been able to hunt a live creature recently. I have my backpack and my acquiring trance and an urgent need to pee. To my right is the door and I'll need to get through at least three hyenas to reach it.

I throw my backpack forward into the mess of hyenas to the front, and they swarm upon it, tearing paper out of the thick bag, searching for the blood inside. The three furthest away from the bag and closest to the door still keep their focus attached to me. I step down onto one knee and grab the closest two under the chin, putting them into an acquiring trance. I pick out the biggest one and start to acquire.

_Focus on the hyena, the one on the left._

The third one leaps towards me. This is where I'm stuck for ideas. I stick out my shoe and try to kick it in the chest, but I'm too early. Superman-strong jaws clamp upon the vans, and I point my toes and slip out of the shoe as the teeth rip through the sides and mash my shoe into a cluster of fluff.

I reach the door and it takes me three times to turn the round handle with my sweaty hands. I slip through the doorframe as a snarling hyena throws itself at the small gap, earning itself a mouthful of ripped jeans.

I slam the door behind me as I slide down the wall and give myself a quick injury check. I have a few gashes on my leg, and a bruise on my shoulder where the first hyena landed, but it's nothing the morphing treatment can't heal. I sit for a few minutes, trying to catch my breath. Eventually, I stand and check my watch. I have 4 minutes until the hyena feeding crew arrives.

Standing up, I take off my sock from the foot with the shoe and tie it around my calf, slowing the bleeding and applying pressure while I find a way out of here. Stumbling back the way I came, I hide again in the zebra enclosure to let the hyena-feeding cart and crew pass. I find the door we entered at the start and stagger out.

I limp towards Kate, sitting at the park bench, cooing to her beloved rat.

'Miss me?'

'Jason! You're 15 minutes la-'

Her voice trails off and her expression changes from a cheerful smile to a horrified gaping mouth as she sees the state I'm in. I probably looked like hell, with my hair all ruffled up, covered in dust and missing a backpack, a chunk of jeans and a shoe.

Kate takes a quick assessment and addresses the larger problem.

'Your backpack. Is it left in an enclosure? What about your shoe? Are your textbooks labelled with your name?'

'Pack of hyenas got it.'

'Alright, we have to move quickly, the afternoon crew are starting their feeding route, and it's only a matter of time before they find your stuff. I'll-'

'It's already happened,' I checked my watch 'the feeding crew just started with the hyenas three minutes ago.'

'Okay, you go the bathroom, morph out your injuries and make yourself look decent. I'll find some zookeepers and make a story about your stuff.'

I limp towards the bathroom and in a few seconds I'm walking out, brushing ferret hair from my hoodie. I scan the crowds and find Kate talking seriously with a zookeeper with a bushy grey moustache. I walk over to her in newly healed legs. I try to pull off the bite mark in my jeans as a fashion statement.

I listened in on Kate's excuse for my appearance.

'So they just ran up to us and grabbed our bag and threw it over the thick glass over there, I was holding the bag at the time so Jason, my friend could take a picture of me with the hyenas. Jason tried to fight back so they grabbed his shoe and chucked it over as well. They landed around those rocks over there.'

I had to admit, Kate was good. She had the watering eyes and everything. It was impossible not to buy into her story.

'Did you see who did it?'

'No sir, they just ran up to us with hoodies over their heads with the strings pulled tight. I think there might've been a red hoodie, I can't remember.'

'Well, I'll get the grounds security to look out for a boy in a red hoodie travelling with two other boys, I'm sorry, but this description is so vague that it won't be enough to determine who is was. We won't be able to charge anybody anything, they'd just deny it. The Gardens can pay for what you've lost. Uh, how much was in that bag?'

'I'm not entirely sure, I… oh, here's Jason now.' Kate points towards me. The keeper swivels his attention to me.

'Um, the bag was pretty old, about $50, and I had my maths textbook, and science, history, geography and Latin. I also had all my exercise books with all my year's work in them. Oh, I'm going to be screwed for end of year exams. And my sunnies were in there too, and my wallet, with about $73 in that too.'

I'm not sure if I've gone too far, but the keeper believes me. I can see Kate's unimpressed glare from behind him. After a bit of a thought, the keeper replies.

'I can get the zoo to refund you with $500 for expenses, plus $73 from your wallet, and an official note to excuse you from any work and will explain your predicament with your schoolwork.'

Kate quickly takes over before I can say anything

'Thanks, sir much appreciated.'

30 minutes later, I was $500 bucks richer, excused from homework and possibly exams for the year, and we both had a free year's admittance to the Gardens, a personal apology for our horrible encounter with three ghost boys.

Kate punched me roughly on the arm.

'You don't even _take_ Latin!'

We laughed as we stepped on the bus. We took the rest of the trip home comparing animal encounter stories from after we split up.


	8. Chapter 7

Chapter 7:

**JASON**

That night, I got no sleep. Usually, I would've blamed it on the heat, or maybe the sheets tangled in my legs. It's quite possible that I'd have blamed it on too much coca cola, or the sound of Toby's late-night Skype sessions with his girlfriend in London.

I knew this night I couldn't get any sleep because I was too focused. I'm sure I was just imagining this, but I could practically feel new strands of DNA coursing through my body, a little porcupine here, a little bobcat there.

I had stayed up until 11 on my phone texting Kate, making sure to delete each message as it comes through my phone. I don't want anyone reading about my new secret life.

Kate had given me the task of morphing. I was supposed to practise, tell her everything about it. She wanted to be prepared for her first morph. Our plan to give her abilities from the pit-bull's cube relied on her surviving, and her survival relied on her being able to successfully morph first attempt.

After a few days, it was time to put our plan into action.

We waited until the next weekend, enduring four more days of school until the blissful freedom of a Saturday morning raised the worries of homework and maths from my shoulders. I needed no alarm for the morning, I'm sure my heartbeat raced fast enough to vibrate me out of bed.

Slipping into a new singlet and jean shorts, I stepped out onto the road at 9 thirty, a new personal best for early morning rises, flip-flops smacking against the concrete. I trudge down the pavement to Kate's house.

'Watch it, mister!'

I step aside from the pavement as I reach Kate's street, making way for a bike to pass. Kate reached out from the bike and snatched my sunglasses of my face, giggling with glee as she raced forward, Mike peering out of the basket soldered to the handlebars.

Groggily, I blink my eyes to grow accustomed to the sun.

'How do you people get up so early? I didn't even know it was humanely possible to get out of bed before 10.'

'You should try getting used to it; I've been getting up at six since high school started. The morning's beautiful, birds sing, shops opening, the sun rising.'

'Sun_rise?_ Never heard of it.'

'So, are we going to do this? I checked the news last night, your little encounter with Pit made him stop his stealing for a few days, but there's been more attacks since Thursday. I'm so pumped; I've can't wait to morph. I'm so excited I could jump ten feet high. I could fly. Speaking of flying, did you realise we have no flying morphs? How silly of us to forget birds!'

'Kate, slow down, I'm supposed to be the one who needs calming. After all, this time I'm going to be risking my life for your benefit. You might as well be more worried for my health.'

Kate took a few controlling breaths, brushing her black hair from her eyes.

'Okay, well, I figured this boy will most likely sleep in, so we can probably wait just a little, maybe grab an ice-cream or something.'

'You do know, he's not going to be able to come with us.'

I nod over at Mike. He's watching patiently from the bike's basket, claws gripping to basket edge.

Kate nodded. Grabbing the bike by the handlebars, she walked the bike to her front porch. Pushing the door open, Kate leans down and speaks a few words to Mike slowly with emphasised clear diction.

'Mike, go to home.'

Setting Mike down on the porch, he scampers through the door and through the house. I can hear his claws scrabbling on the shiny floorboards until he reaches the shaggy carpet of Kate's room.

'Well then, let's head off.'

I only manage to eat half of my ice-cream before I had to drop it in a passing bin. My stomach churned, and I was afraid I would throw up on a new morph. How embarrassing.

We reached the point where I found Pit-Bull last week, and we halted. I could hear no crying, but it was quite possible he was on the hunt for a new victim. Slowly and cautiously, we crept up the backstreet until we arrived at the abandoned property.

Peering around the corner, I could see Pit-bull boy sitting on the back porch, counting his latest money. I could tell he hit a large jackpot by both the size of his stack of notes, and the size of his evil smile as he fanned out the notes before him.

I turn back and nod at Kate. _He's here._

Turning back, she runs out of the alleyway. Just like that, our plan is in motion. I step out from behind the corner, moving through the tall, uncut grass, taking ten steps towards the boy before I stop.

'Stop stealing,'

It's worth a shot. If I can reason with him, maybe there isn't a need for a fight. Maybe Kate and I could just do our business and be on our way.

'No.'

My heart sinks. I'm going to have to teach this guy a lesson after all. He needs to know that if he messes with anyone else, he'll have me to deal with, and quite soon, he'll be dealing with Kate.

He says no other word, and I wait for him to extend his answer. He drops his bag on the porch and steps into the grass. It's only until his teeth poke out of his lips and his ears crawl up his head that I realise that he's not going to be extending any answer without a human mouth.

_Hyena_, I focus, starting my morph. I'm going to need to start now if I'm to survive.

The morph starts at my neck. Bulging out, my shoulder blades stick straight out of my back, realigning my head further down. I fall forward onto both feet at the same time as Pit-bull does. Black fur spreads from my nose, dissipating into a tan-coloured coat starting at my eyes. My nose elongates, and my ears finish in a rounded semicircle, unlike my two hyena cousin species with pointy ears. My back slants downwards, and a bristly mane spurts out from my spine. Then the jaw appears.

With 59 teeth that can crush a 7 centimetre giraffe bone, my jaw stands out from the rest of my body. It's one of the world's strongest jaws, stronger than a lions, made for ripping bones from scavenged carcasses.

A newly morphed pit-bull lopes towards me, a half-finished hyena desperately trying to complete my morph.

My ropy tail sprouts out of my behind, finishing my morph as pit-bull meets Hyena in a ferocious jumble of paws and teeth. I can't control the hyena's mind, it's blocked me out completely, and I'm glad. I'm not sure I'd know what to do without the hyena's brain, but when the hyena is attacked, the hyena attacks back. Eventually, I wrestle control of my brain. I only need to guide the hyena, give it a target and I'm off, darting around the pit-bull, swiping my thick claws at flank, legs and face.

I've certainly taken the dog by surprise; after all, who would've been expecting a fully grown hyena? I jump around the dog, planning on a wide swipe to its left flank. I let out a yelp as rabbit-trap teeth close around my back leg, dragging me backwards.

Time to see what this pair of dentures can really do.

Digging my front feet into the dirt, I scrape my chest along the ground, back towards his back leg: my new target. He may have a rabbit-trap face, but wait until he gets a load of my bear trap, my steel fangs.

'AWROOOOOO!'

The dog's high pitch wail drops my back leg, now profusely bleeding from numerous teeth holes. I block out the pain and twist my head to the side, earning another yell of pain.

I release his leg and we both stumble backwards, checking each other for wounds, seeing who will back off first. I'm limping on my back leg, and have a few gashes in my side and a bite mark on my neck, but nothing too major.

Pit-bull, however, has one leg completely out of action. Shredded flesh hangs out from his leg, the ground stained in blood. Gashes down both flanks and a claw mark down his face, he looks down and out for the match.

To my surprise, he gingerly stands his back leg on the ground. Attacking me with new ferociousness, it's impossible to tell that this guy had even been damaged in our previous brawl. I jump back, holding my ground, keeping his back to the house.

Kate sneaks through the back door to the house, looking at me with a face of horror.

(I'm fine,) I say in private thoughtspeak (I'll hold my ground here. The cube, it's in the bag next to the chair.)

I continue to battle, keeping all attention away from the house. I'm beginning to lose a lot of blood; the pit-bull's new attack had left me with far too many wounds.

Finally, I receive a message from the gods.

(I'm all good now.)

I push both front legs onto the pit-bull's wide shoulders and roll over his body, ending up behind the dog. In the time it takes for the dog to turn around, I've stood on my feet and started running to the house.

With two of my legs now seriously injured the pit-bull catches up quickly. Using a trick learned from the hyena's brain, I lower my back legs as I run. A snarling bite aimed for my hindquarters slides off as the pit-bull can't find a corner or rounded area to latch on to. I survive the run to the porch and race up the stairs, sending another private message to Kate.

(Now.)

I reach the porch and dive off to the side as Kate comes bursting through the door, a leathery grey tank, loaded with sharp horns and crushing feet.

Catching the pit-bull with the side of her horn, Kate throws him up into the air and into the backyard with the tremendous strength of her rhino morph. I watch this from the safety of the porch, demorphing away my injuries.

(Did I get him? I can't see anything.)

(You got-)

My human mouth appears.

"him. You definitely got him."

Walking over to the pitbull, guiding a rhino under my hand, we walk to the pit-bull as he frantically demorphs his broken bones away.

"You finished?"

With a scared glance at the rhino, he nods his head.

(Ha! This feels awesome! I can't believe the originals didn't stay in this morph forever!)

"Kate, calm yourself, there are plenty of other morphs to try out first before you-"

I stop talking as I realise the boy is shaking his head and murmuring something directed at me.

"Sorry, speak up."

The next words were spoken so quietly, so eerily creepily; it made the hair on the back of my neck stand up, I had to double check to make sure I wasn't morphing porcupine.

"Don't move suddenly. Get behind the rhino."

I don't question the boy's orders. Something about the way he's looking to the side of the building makes me want to act now, questions later. I take a few steps back behind Kate, leaving room as the boy moves in close beside me.

(What did he say? I didn't hear and I can't read his lips! Why are you guys behind me?)

"Tell your rhino friend to lower her head and close her eyes. Tell her to be prepared."

"What is it?"

I go to turn around and look behind Kate, but the boy grabs me by the shoulders and pins me to Kate's bum.

"Don't. Look. You got any morphs, something that can fly out of here?"

"No birds yet, I'm not leaving Kate either."

"Something that can fight then, something that can run."

"I have hyena, we _just_ fought. Do you have short term memory loss?"

"Morph. Now. As quickly as possible."

"Kate, head down, eyes closed."

I begin my transformation to hyena. The boy starts changing back to pit-bull.

(If this is a trick to continue our fight, it's not very tactical, I practically kicked your arse two minutes ago, and now you have to deal with my fr-"

A laser beam sounds, and Kate yells out in pain.

(Hold fast, Kate, don't crush us)

The boy is orders Kate with the voice of a leader. Kate follows her commands, but not without a few questions.

(What was that? Why does my shoulder burn?)

(You were shot by some sort of gun, by some sort of alien.)

(Andalites?) I ask

(No. It had two feet. It's impossible to tell, I don't think Earth has ever met these guys before.)

Kate yells out with pain as another shot is fired into her knee.

(Kate, search for a two legged creature, and charge it. We need to get out of here. We'll guide you.)

Kate's head turns side to side, up and down, searching for this mystery shooter. A snort of her nose, and a paw of the ground, and she's charging down to the side fence.

Dropping her horn down, she receives another shot, hitting right above her eye. She finds the assailant, and tosses him over her head and into a clump at our feet.

(Careful,) Pit-bull says, (There could be more.)

We look down to study this new alien. We don't have enough time.

(Uh guys, I think Earth is being invaded again.)

(What is it, Kate?)

(I see more of them, coming up the side of the house)

Not surprisingly, it's the pit-bull who takes charge.

(Kate, turn around and head for the back fence, check if the pathways clear. We'll hold them off over here, and if you can, demorph and remorph something a little more moveable. You,) he looks at me (get me the cube, I'll carry it; we'll need your jaws more. The plan is to run three blocks towards the beach and hide in someone's front yard.)

Kate slowly backs out of her position, revealing about six new figures, armed with some sort of dracon beam.

I run and pick up the cube from the porch and drop it at Pit-bulls feet. Protectively stepping over it, he looks towards the aliens and growls.

(Hyena, you see any weak-points?)

I peer through the shaded area and study the new attackers.


	9. Chapter 8

Chapter 8:

**JASON**

The eight figures lumbered up the path beside the house, barely enough room between the brick walled building and the rotting fence to walk two aliens side by side.

(Dude, weak points? Alien invasion? These are humans.)

(Look through that, Hyena, I've noticed a few people like this over the past week. It's a hologram.)

I look closely at the closest man, a burly guy with a plain brown polo shirt, completely brand-less. Looking at his eyes, I can see a purple iris. Definitely not human. The more I look, the more mistakes I can find; the limp in his walk when both his legs look completely fine, the way his hair seemed unaffected by the wind.

(The Chee?)

(No, all reports of the Chee say that they left with the Andalites. Anyway, aren't they supposed to be pacifists? How would you explain the attack on your rhino friend?)

(Not enough time to find out now. You take the one on the right?)

(I have a better Idea, you stay here.)

(Stay here? Where else will I go?)

Leaving behind the cube, pit-bull runs back to the porch, I hear him leap through the wide gap Kate left where the doorway was, and pitter-patter of his padded feet up to the second floor.

The first hologram reaches me. I bite down on an exposed right leg, expecting to come into contact with vulnerable flesh. Instead, my jaws bounce off a thick metal, the ringing sound made as teeth and metal collide ringing up my thick skull and vibrating my spine.

(Metal legs!) I cried out, hoping that pit-bull could hear.

(Got it!)

I duck between the man's legs and swipe at the other leg, just to be certain. Instead of the expected clang as my claws hit metal, I dig into hidden flesh, tougher than usual flesh, but a target all the same.

(Left leg is a target!)

"Got it!"

(Did you demorph?)

"Only for this!"

Pit emphasised each word as he heaved his body on some hidden object from in the house.

I can tell he started to morph again, because the next sound that came out of the house was a creak and a snort from what sounded like a horse, or a cow.

"Stand back!"

I barely have time to unlatch my jaw from the aliens leg as the wall to the top floor collapsed outward, exploding as a couch and a cow throws itself out of the window, landing on the next two aliens.

CRUNCH

Wood splinters everywhere, including into the cow in numerous places, but the main two victims who fare the worst are the two aliens underneath the couch, knocked out completely. Amazingly, the couch lands upright, blocking off the other aliens in a maze of bricks, wood panels and the couch itself. The main part that intrigues me most is that the hologram on the two aliens under the couch has been broken. Maybe from studying these aliens, we can figure out how to destroy this one.

(You! Either demorph and figure out how to disable these holograms or hold this one for a moment for me.)

(Demorphing now!)

Continuing my fight with the current alien, I test out parts of its body, seeing which limbs would make a good target, and which are covered with the same armour I encountered with the right leg.

The boy finished his demorphing and crouches down to look at the alien.

"Hyena, aim for the back of its neck. There's a large microchip there, about the size of a tic-tac box."

Now, Hyenas can jump 2 metres; but a tic-tac box is a small target. To top it off, the target is on a moving creature who, at the same time, is trying to attack me.

I dance around the aliens legs and leap at the neck. It takes three tries before I even connect with the body, and even then I only hit his shoulder. The alien swings around with its right arm, catching me by surprise as his apparently fleshy arm hits me with the same metal I found on his leg. I swing back onto the couch, raising a cloud of dust.

The man takes a step towards me, raising the same hand to prepare for a strong backhand.

He doesn't get any further as his left leg crumples. Unable to hold up his heavy right leg, the man topples backwards, landing on the back of his head, knocking him out.

A shadow crawls through the dusty cloud, two bright yellow eyes opened in awareness.

It's Kate, in her black panther morph.

(Woah, how many are there of you, or-)

The boy finishes his pit-bull morph for the third time.

(It's still me, the rhino chick.)

(Do we have time to look under this guy's hologram?)

I glance over the couch. The other five aliens have left, possibly for another entrance.

(Be quick,)Kate says (There were three more in the back alley, but they had no chance against a rhino.)

Kate rolled over the alien onto his face and swiped at the back of his neck.

(The trick is to imagine where the tag would be on a turtleneck sweater.)

A few sparks flew, and the man's skin flashed a couple of times, and fizzled out, revealing a mix of what looked like C3PO and a lizard.

His right leg and both arms are a dull bronze metal, as well as the down the back of his head and wrapped around his right eye. Short blades protrude from his elbows and from the back of his hand, similar to a giant flat wolverine blade. I shudder as I realise how many times I was almost impaled on those blades without even realising they were there. The rest of his body was covered in green scales, his only leg ending in a thick scaly talon.

He wore skin-tight black shorts, and a belt around his shoulder to hip with a gun holster on it, holding a hand-held dracon beam, except, it looked skinnier and purple. It was definitely stolen technology from either a yeerk or andalite and modified again to suit this new race.

It was the new boy who spoke first.

(Woah, he's got strange armour.)

(It's not armour, I think it's actually part of him. I had a look at one while I morphed panther, and I couldn't find a seam.)

I'm astounded.

(You mean, this is his actual body?)

(Yep.)

There's a pause, then Kate is the first one to speak again. This time, she directs her speech at the boy.

(Look, Pit, you're going to have to stick with us if we're facing a new alien invasion. I suggest you stop your criminal life and join us.)

(Yeah, whatever. Let's just stay I'll stick with you guys for a week, see the extent of this 'invasion', for all you guys know, twelve aliens could be the whole race. Pit, eh, I like the name, short for pit-bull. Call me Cameron.)

(I seriously doubt it would be 12 guys for a whole race, but if you're going to be fighting with us, you're going to need some better morphs.)

(What? I like my pit-bull morph. And you saw the damage I made as that bull!)

I stepped in again and voiced my word.

(Kate has a rhino and a panther; you have a scary dog and a cow.)

(It's a bull!)

(It's a cow, it had an udder. Only female cows have udders.)

(Fine. One of you guys has to take me to wherever you got those circus freaks.)

"I'll take him; I have to get some new morphs anyways."

We all swivelled to see the newcomer, everyone poised for a quick retaliation in our dangerous morphs.

Rising out of a white bird with yellow plumes is a skinny boy with a dark tan.

(Cockatoo.) Kate whispers in private thought speak.

(Huh?)

(That bird. It's a cockatoo. I wonder where he got it; they're Australian. There's none of them at the Gardens either)

"The names Kaspar, but call me Kay. I'm new here, came from Australia two days ago. I…. got this a while ago, I'm guessing you have one too."

He holds up a blue cube, identical to the one between Cameron's front paws.


	10. Chapter 9

Chapter 9:

**CAMERON**

I liked this new guy; I had only been in the losers' gang for about twenty minutes, but already I could see that I was going to be missing out, never fully a member of the group. Honestly, I always wanted to be part of a gang; but I said that I'd leave in a week anyways. I'm not going to leave; I just need to keep a hold of my reputation.

See, the group that we currently have consists of me, the brutal yet thoughtful, the rash and childish, and the brainy hipster chick. The others were already a couple, it may not be official, but they were still inseparable through their obvious friendship. I'd always be the third wheel, the annoying kid the others had to escort everywhere. A group of three just wouldn't work. That's why I jumped at the opportunity to welcome a fresh, foreign guy.

Of course, the brainy hipster had to speak the more obvious questions.

(Can we trust him? I mean, he has a cube, but we have no idea what these new aliens are capable of. How would we know if the cockatoo morph was a legit morph or a fancy hologram trick?)

Jake studied the boy from head to feet with glossy hyena eyes.

(I don't see any purple eyes, and he didn't seem to be limping. If there was a hologram, there's an easy way to find out.)

"Okay, I get it, you're not sure if you want another member in your already tightly knitted group, but I only just moved here, and is the private thoughtspeak really necessary? You do realise I'm standing here in awkward silence."

Tightly knitted group? Hah. I speak up, as the bad-boy, I feel like it's my job to do the tough speaking.

(Listen here, _mate_, we just haven't decided yet. Give us a mo, _mate._)

(Stop it with the 'mates', your fake Australian accent sounds like a pirate.)

I shoot a glare at Jason, scrunching up my dog face at his comment.

Kate pads forward, circling the new kid clockwise. I follow her, using my sensitive nose to go all interrogation on him, find out what he really was up to the past day.

(He ate a bagel for breakfast. He uses women's shampoo. Hair gel. Axe deodorant. New shoes. Clean underwear.)

(Cameron, stop listing the smells. We need to find _real_ evidence that he's a human, and not one out to kill us. Stand behind his legs for a moment. Jason, you check for a metal leg.)

Kaspar stands very still as we inspect him, tensing his muscles as we sniff around him.

(Hey, my hyena nose is pretty good… Okay, someone farted. Wait, maybe they stood in dog poo. Wait, it's just Cameron's morph.)

I pad over behind the boy, standing stiff and steady as I prepare for Kate's plan. She backs up and crouches down. I've seen this position before, in smaller cats around the neighbourhood. This is the position they make before they pounce.

(Be nice, Kate.)

Kate bunches up her muscles and leaps forward, rocketing straight towards me. Landing square on my back, she uses me as a hoist to lift her up to boy's back. With a loud 'oomph!' she knocks him to the ground. The boy doesn't get up or try to move; he just lies down and takes the weight of a panther on his back. A quick swipe with retracted claws to the back of his neck, and we wait for the hologram to disappear.

No sparks, no flickering, no secret alien under his skin.

"You know, you could've just asked me to sit down or something."

Kate scrabbles off his back, hurriedly demorphing back into a human girl, embarrassed red cheeks appearing out of her black fur. Her attraction to Kay was obvious, but I don't think he noticed.

(Sorry, I just needed to be sure; we have no idea what these new aliens could do. Did I hurt you? Are you-) her fangs sunk back into her gums and her lips melded into her average, human lips, cutting out her thoughtspeak. "-Okay? Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, just a little shaken up."

I started to demorph back, satisfied that if Kate thinks he's safe, that I can demorph without danger too. Jason isn't too sure; he's still pacing circles around Kay, who is now sitting up in the dust.

(Are you sure you hit the right place? I could've sworn it was a tad lower…)

He opens his jaw to snap at Kay's neck. Straight away, we could all see it was a bad choice. Jason obviously hadn't gotten used to his morph yet, he was going to kill Kay without even meaning to.

"Jason!" we both cried out, the scene playing out to our eyes in slow motion.

Kay ducks his head and Jason goes flying past, rolling over his shoulders. Quickly retaliating, Kay swings his legs around Jason's hyena body and twists his him into a sort of modified head lock for your legs. Kate and I breathed a sigh of relief. Kay gives a quick slap to Jason's nose, startling him with his speed and accuracy.

"Jason, I think you should demorph. Now."

Jason slowly changed to human, still locked between Kay's legs.

After Jason was fully human, Kay lifts his legs and an uncomfortable Jason untangles himself. Kay catches his first look at Jason's face, and then he does something that surprises me. He blushes. Sure, he had Jason's head between his legs, but that's an average wrestling move. Nothing to be embarrassed about, we're all guys. Unless…. The great smelling shampoo, his stunning sense of fashion and styled hair, his obliviousness to Kate's obvious attraction to him…

Oh this was just too good! The as if the new animorphs didn't already have enough stereotypes, now we have the foreign one and the gay one in the same person! And I'm the only one who has noticed!

"Sorry, Jason, I, uh…. It was just reflexes. And sorry about that nose-slap, I learned that when I was working at the Aussie zoo."

Kate tunes in to his last words

"Aussie zoo? As in _the _ Australia zoo, the one in Queensland? The Steve Irwin one? You work there?"

"Well, not anymore, but I did work there, I helped with the feeding sessions and the caring for the more docile creatures. Kangaroos and photos with koalas and such."

"So, do you have all these Australian morphs? From, like, working at the zoo?"

"Yeah, but I have no battle morphs. We have tigers and elephants, but I was never allowed to care for them. After sending in all these birds into calm trances, I became the bird assistant because I could settle them down so easily."

"What's the story about the cube? Where did you find it?"

"Find it? No, I was given this by Illian-Strath-urthan, one of my andalite friends. She liked the Australian bird morphs. She gave this to me the day before they left. She said I earned it, and that Earth needs a new protector now that the animorphs have left. I thought you were given your cube from another andalite?"

They swivelled their necks towards me.

"Me? No, who would give me a morphing cube? I found this walking around one of the empty andalite take-off zones a few months ago. It was buried under some rubble. I was moving the rubble to make a skate ramp out of a sheet of tin I found.'

An explosion rocked in the distance.

"Kay, what did you see from up there? Any more aliens?"

Kay looked at me with a puzzled face.

"You… you guys haven't seen it? Their ships were disguised as clouds. There are thousands of them. They seem to find a way to jam guns. It's a full frontal invasion, starting in this town."

The alien knocked out behind us stirred.

"The slave harvest… will… continue…."

"Go to hell."

Kate gave a brutal kick to the aliens face with her sandal. I've never seen such a harsh side to her. Tears are running down her cheeks, smearing her mascara into an imitation of a panda morph. I look over to see that Jason too is on the verge of crying.

"Wait, what's so bad? The andalites will come back."

"Didn't you hear, you jerk? Slave harvest! My mother!"

Oh crap, our families. I stay with my uncle, my parents wanted to travel, so they just ditched me here while they jumped from India to Japan. It had been months since their last postcard, I guess they just got too caught up in their travels to write to me. I know this is bad, but we need to act fast.

"Let's sort out our priorities. We need to get out of here."

"And fight the invasion." Kay chipped in.

"Yes, and fight the invasion. We need flying morphs, underwater morphs, bug morphs, I personally need a new fighting morph, and we need to get to the city, to the gardens."

"Mike. We need to get Mike."

I'm puzzled.

"Who's Mike, I thought there were only two of-"

"Her rat."

"Fine, we get Mike too. Kay, what flights do you have? Anything that can carry weight?"

"A wedge-tailed eagle can carry large rabbits and baby kangaroos"

"Perfect. Jason, Kate, morph small."

Feathers started to etch themselves into the skin down Kay's arms. Even though his face was mainly focused on turning his soft lips into the hard beak of a wedge tailed eagle, I could tell he understood my plan.

I scooted over to the two morphing cubes and picked them up. I ran inside the house and found a small handbag.

Kate peered at the bag with interest through drying eyes.

"Yeah, you can have it when we're done with it. Morph, Kate."

Jason had already begun his change to a white rat. Kate followed him, changing into what I assumed was the same morph. Comparing the two morphing, I could see a definite difference. Jason's morph was smoother, less jumpy and much quicker than Kate's. Maybe I should bring that up later. I needed to start my morph.

Plopping the two cubes into the bag, I started my morph to Crow. Immediately I shrunk down, already completing the size aspect of the morph before my actual body started to warp itself into the bird. Grey lines weaved their way up my arms, across my chest and up my neck. Thickening and popping out, the lines formed feathers, shimmering from pale skin tones to jet black. I felt my short, almost completely shaved head stretch out slightly, and my ears shrunk down, disappearing in the mass of feathers. My legs thinned out and also grew black, shoes splitting apart into the crow's small talons. My lips hardened and twisted together into a pointed cone, and I had a moment of panic before the cone split in half, re-opening my new mouth.

(See, that is exactly why you need new morphs, Cam. Compare these two birds here, my dear Kate; one is a majestic, killer of giant kangaroos and sheep. The other, was baked into a giant pie and served to a king with twenty others or something.)

(Jason, those were blackbirds and there were four and twenty of them. Don't you remember your nursery rhymes?)

(Anyways, do you see my point? Cam-cam here's going to struggle to keep up with this majestic bird.)

I looked over at Kay, and I could tell exactly what he meant. The wedge-tailed eagle was magnificent. His wicked sharp beak hooked downwards at the point, creating a deadly weapon. Razor sharp talons, along with beautiful brown feathers that gave off the same perfect vibe as Kate's panther morph made the eagle a god among birds. Kay opened his wings, showing off his 2.3 metre wingspan.

I felt worthless beside him. I was a dog, a cow and a crow, standing next to eagles and rhinos. I needed something to be feared by.

Kate and Jason scrambled into the handbag, two white rodents and two blue cubes.

(You think you could carry them?)

(Mate, I'm going to have to slow down for you in that morph. Tell me if I wear you out, I'll make sure to make fun of you when we reach the city.)

With those cheerful words, he glided forward and clutched the handbag's handles, raising himself from the ground.

(Don't forget Mike!)

(Yes Kate, we won't)

I take a moment to think. I'll be slower than Kay, I'm going to struggle catching up.

(You go get Mike, meet me at the McDonalds at the exit to the highway nearest the hospital. We'll remorph there. Oh, and get some money.)

And with that, we split apart. I was flying to the north and Kay was flying to the West. Straight away I could tell something was eerily different as I looked at the streets below me.

There were people, but they weren't talking, they were all marching; marching at the same speed. Flying lower, I picked out someone I recognised. It was Mr Taylor, a geography teacher for the year above me at my school. My bird eyes picked it out straight away.

Purple eyes. Unusual limp.

I flapped as hard as I could and raced away, soaring over rooftops.

Hi guys! Thanks for reading this far, let me know what you think :)


	11. Chapter 10

Chapter 10:

**CAMERON**

It was a hot day on the top of the hospital; standing on a dark roof with no shade wasn't on my to-do list. It took twenty minutes before I started seeing regular people among the streets, oblivious to the purple-eyed aliens who were copying people just a few blocks down the road. I had flown into an empty house and taken a wallet full of notes; about $300 in total. If we were going to survive without our homes and families, we'll need this money.

I stood on the end of the roof, shading me eyes, scanning the clouds for a wedge-tailed eagle. _Where were they? I'm sure it doesn't take that long to fly here, they only had a small detour._ On numerous occasions I had falsely raised my hopes when I saw a stray bird flying in my direction.

Eventually, Kay arrived, but not by air. I could tell it was him, because why else would there be a kangaroo bounding towards the hospital?

I quickly morphed crow and flew down to meet him. He had put the handbag inside his pouch, creating a protective lining for the three white rats peering out over the top.

(I feel sick.) said the Jason rat.

(What took you guys so long? I've been waiting here for at least thirty minutes!)

Kay spoke up as he lifted the handbag out of his pouch and onto the ground.

(Sorry, we got a little side-tracked, Jason needed to check on his family too,)

(They had purple eyes.) Jason and Kate had started to demorph.

(We were flying back when we started to get shot by those lasers. I had to morph kangaroo and jump over back fences on my way here to avoid the purple-eyes.)

(Over back fences? How high exactly can those jump?)

(We aren't entirely sure what the peak of a kangaroo's jump is, but some larger ones, this morph included, can jump 5-6 meters from a standstill.)

(In feet?)

(Sorry, it's about 19 feet.)

(So, they started to shoot you?)

(Yeah, I guessed it was because an Australian eagle carrying three rats in a handbag was a bit suspicious. Maybe they thought we were left-behind andalites or they think there are still morph capable humans.)

Kay and I both started to demorph. With us two without speech-capable mouths, Kate took the floor with a new plan.

"I was watching from Kay's pouch, there didn't seem to be any purple eyes around this area. I suspect they're growing, taking each suburb at a time. By the end of this day they'll have taken the whole town and will be preparing for the city. I think that it's safe for now to catch a bus to the city. Does anyone have a place to stay when we arrive?"

A half-morphed Kay raised his hand.

"Great, we'll stay at Kay's place. We'll then alert the army so they can prepare for a fight, and then we'll use guerrilla attacks to protect the city and try to take back the captured humans."

I finished demorphing, but Kate had already said everything that needed to be said. All that was left was dealing out the money between us and catching a bus to the city. An hour and a half later, we were walking through the crowded streets, led by Kay.

We stopped in front of a posh, modern hotel, situated in amongst the tallest skyscrapers. It had marble door arches, bellboys and a doorman.

"Umm…. Kay, where are we?"

"Relax, It's a hotel room, one of those rich, fancy ones. My dad manages the hotels, see, that's why we came over here. The thing is, we have a fancy apartment on most hotels near the top, not exactly the penthouse apartment, but close to it. It means we have a place to stay wherever we go. Dad was on a business trip in your town, he was at a meeting for building a new tower in a neighbouring city. He was taken by the purple-eyes, which leaves all the apartments for us."

We arrived at the apartment and lazed around. Well, everyone except Kate and I. Jason and Kay watched television on a leather couch, Mike was sniffling through a box of cereal, and I was on Kay's computer, trying to find a way to contact the army. Kate seemed to be cooking something in the kitchen.

"Kate, what are you doing?"

She reached into her handbag and pulled out a plastic shopping bag, filled with two cubes.

"We put these cubes into the plastic bag when we picked up Mike. We didn't want Mike to gain morphing powers. I think it's safer we hide these somewhere safe, and disguise them so nobody can find them or accidentally touch them."

She grabbed a large Tupperware container box and filled it with water to about a fifth. She walked back to the pantry and came back with a handful of food colouring. Dropping all of the red into the water and half of the blue, she had a thick, dark puddle of water. She then stuck it into the freezer.

"I'll have to finish it when it's frozen."

She dialled up the freezer to the lowest temperature and closed the door.

"Any luck with the army?"

"Not really. I don't think they'll believe us if we tell them online anyway, they need proof."

"Well, what else can we do?"

Kay spoke up from the couch. "We need morphs, especially Cameron. Come on, dude, a cow?"

"It was a bull." I said through gritted teeth, but I knew he was right. My morphs sucked.

After a short bustrip, Kay and I were flying over the gates of the Gardens. Kay had opted to go for a less 'loud' approach, and he was morphed into another small Australian bird, a pink and grey bird he called a 'galah'.

"This isn't fair, how come Jason and Kate get free entry to the Gardens?"

"Hey, do you see us paying to get in?"

He has a point. I flew over to the others and spoke to them in thoughtspeak. Because Kay was such a foreign animal, he flew straight to the bathrooms to demorph.

(Hey guys, we're going to meet up at the dolphin tank. There's a dolphin show going on, and we can try to be chosen out of the crowd to pat the dolphins.)

I swerved back to the bathrooms and demorphed in a cubicle, meeting Kay on my way out. We walked over to the dolphin tanks just as the show was finishing.

"Ah, crap. What do we do now?" Kay said.

"Just you wait; Kate worked some magic last time we were here. Here she goes, just stand here and look innocent."

I followed Jason's orders and watched Kate as she walked down to the dolphin keepers. After a few words with the keepers, she waved us over.

The lady was still wearing her wetsuit; she had just been riding two dolphins in the show for a big finale of dolphin backflips. Her blonde ponytail was matted together with seawater, and she had a bag of smelly fish on her belt. She was smiling, still excited after her show with the dolphins.

"Hey, I'm so sorry about what happened last week. Your friend explained everything. Usually we have people to check that sort of thing, but I guess we missed it this time. Anyways, you can all take a photo with Chandler, Joey and Phoebe here, they're the friendliest."

I'm slightly puzzled with what Kate told the keeper, but I follow along anyway.

"You first Cameron, it was your photo that was ruined last week anyway."

Ah, I get it now. Kate must've told the lady that we had already taken a photo with the dolphins last week, but the photo we bought was ruined somehow, maybe by a blink or a fly in the way.

I step over to the dolphin tank and the lady hands me a small fish. I don't even need to dangle the fish into the tank before three dolphins surface, eager for fish and human contact.

"Which one is which?"

"Left to right, they are Joey, Chandler, and Phoebe."

I definitely want a guy dolphin morph, I made a pact to choose the morph with balls if I ever get the choice. I quickly decide that Joey looks like the biggest dolphin and I toss the fish towards him. I reach out and put my hand on his leathery skin. It was smooth yet not slimy, so my hand glided over his head without much friction. He felt slightly like wet rubber, like the snorkelling flippers they hand out for school swimming training.

Joey became calm and peaceful to allow me to acquire his DNA. I took a quick pose for Jason to take a photo with his IPhone, and then took my hand away, taking over Jason's place as a cameraman.

We took turns acquiring the DNA, Kate choosing Phoebe and the other two choosing Chandler. Afterwards, we stayed for a few more minutes, just to take more photos and play with the dolphins. My favourite photo was when Kay was acquiring his dolphin and Jason jumped into the photo, putting his arm around Kay's shoulders and causing him to blush.

With a quick thankyou to the keeper, we left through the back of the stands.

"Where to now?" I said.

"Let's make a list of things we need, and we'll split up. Kay and I, Cameron and Jason."

We quickly made a list of necessary morphs. All of us except for Kay needed bird morphs; all of us except for Kate needed heavy-duty morphs. I needed a stronger battle morph, and Kay wanted something with a large bite too. We each wrote a few more animals that we needed and split up.

Jason and I headed towards the aviary.

Tell me what you think! I might be a little slower posting new chapters from now on, my exams are coming up... :/


	12. Chapter 11

Chapter 11:

**KAY**

Dammit Kate, I wanted to go with Jason.

I don't think Kate was being very smart picking these pairs; she put both of the brainy people together and left the two most unintelligent people off to get close and personal with dangerous animals. I was probably the guy who knew the most about animals, even if all I'd learned was from aussie beasts. Kate would be the next step down in animal knowledge, her knowledge coming from common sense and rational thinking.

Pairing Jason and Cameron together probably wasn't as smart. From what I've heard of Cam, he was a great leader, but I'd also heard that he broke people's legs and ripped out their pockets, looking for spare change. Jason, in all his godliness, was just a slight bit still in primary school, just a tad immature. It would be interesting hearing all his stories from his Gardens adventures when we're back at home.

Kate took me by the hand and to the Galapagos tortoise enclosure. She told me it was her new secret way of getting behind the scenes.

"What animal should we get first?"

"I don't care, whatever you want, Kay."

"Well, I need a battle morph, so-"

"A cat. You should get a cat. Like my cat. I have a panther morph. You should get a panther morph! We could be panther buddies!"

Kate is acting a bit weird right now; I'm beginning to wish I was paired with anyone else now.

"Well, I think we should go for a little bit of variety, like the original animorphs."

"But, we could be panther-"

"Fine! I'll get a cat, but not a panther."

I'm beginning to see where Kate's coming from. She's love-struck. That's why she paired us together, she wanted alone time with me.

"Yay! What cat would you want?"

"How 'bout a tiger? One of those would be pretty awesome."

I take out my map of the Gardens and guide our way to the big cats section. Kate's obvious flirting is obvious. At each imaginary sound she hears, she finds an excuse to clutch my arm, or to bury her face into my shoulder. I know she's braver than this; she took on three aliens in a back alley, demorphed, remorphed panther and took out one more to save Jason.

"Oh! I wonder what's in this door."

Kate opens the door and walks peers inside.

"Ah! Protect me Kay!"

She falls dramatically into my chest as I look through her into the exhibition. A disgruntled Tapir looked on from the ferns inside.

"Kate, it's just a Malaysian Tapir. They're harmless."

Kate let out a girly giggle and stood up, closing the door. There was no way we could continue like this.

"Kate, hold up. You need to stop."

Kate stops and faces me, her smile fading slightly.

"I know what you're doing, but it's not going to work. Well, not on me."

"You have a girlfriend?"

"Not exactly…"

"You don't like me?"

"No, it's just that-"

"Who is she?"

"Kate, I'm-"

"It's my hair, or the way I dress, isn't it?"

"Kate, I'm not –"

"So, who is this mystery chi-"

"Kate, I'm gay."

"Oh."

Well, that's a way to shut up a chatty girl. We stood like that in silence for a while, and then we both started to talk at the same time.

"Are you-"

"I'm sorry that-"

After another awkward pause, I let Kate speak first.

"This whole time?"

I nodded.

"So, it's not me? I'm still beautiful?"

"Kate, you're beautiful. It's got nothing to do about your looks. You're gorgeous and you have a personality and a brain to match it. I'm just, not into that type of stuff. I'm into quite the opposite, really."

Kate laughed.

"I must look pretty stupid right now."

"Hey, you had no idea. It's not your fault. Now, how about getting those morphs?"

We walked down the corridor for a bit in silence when Kate paused for a moment, her face in a puzzling thought.

"Whatever happened to all aussie blokes being, well, blokes?"

"Whatever happened to all Americans being fat and overweight?"

"Touché."

"Come on, I think we're almost there."

We rounded the corner and stopped outside a door.

"This one is tiger. I'm sure of it."

"Okay, should we go through everything I had to do to get my morph first? Maybe some of it could help us."

"Tell me. Better safe than sorry."

"Okay, so the panther was curled up asleep on a rock ledge above the door, out of my reach. All the rocks were real except the back wall, which was the one he was lying on. It was made of plastic, so I had trouble climbing it. I got a piece of grass and tickled his nose with it, and threw apples at trees to wake it up slightly. The panther woke up, but was still half asleep. It was a bit annoyed at me, so it waved its tail out of irritation, just like pet cats. I then acquired DNA through the tail, and the panther woke up, but it was too sleepy to attack or anything. It seemed quite harmless and complacent."

Kate makes a move to go open the handle.

"Wait! There's, something else you should know before we go in."

"Another thing? What is it with you and secrets?"

"I'm a morphing-vecol. I can't send animals into an acquiring trance."

"Hey, it's okay. I'll acquire it first, and then you can acquire it while it's still in a trance."

And then we open the door and step into a rainforest.

The habitat was thick with foliage, it was difficult to see very far ahead; but Kate had told me to prepare for the worst. Holding hands so we wouldn't get lost, we stepped into the mass of green.

"Here kitty… Damn, I wished we brought a sausage or something to use as bait."

"Actually, I'd prefer to walk among tigers without holding a piece of dead animal."

Eventually, we found a tiger. It wasn't much of a problem, he was already sleeping.

"Oh, this makes things so much easier. Quick, go acquire it." Kate said with a whisper.

I step up to the tiger and sink my fingers into his thick fur. He was larger than Kate's Panther morph, stronger and more, well, butch. While I acquired the tiger, I traced his black stripes, and even dared to give him a scratch behind the ear.

"Um, Kay, we forgot something."

"Kate…"

"You remember when Jake and Marco acquired the very same tiger during the Yeerk war?"

"Yes…."

"Remember how there were more than just one tiger?"

Slowly turning around, I see a tiger walk through the bushes and into the clearing where we found the sleeping tiger. Kate stands very still, not daring to move. I look around us, searching for a weapon to use, an exit to take. _Dammit, where was the entrance?_

"Kate, behind you there is a metal ladder; it climbs out of the tiger pit. I want you to slowly walk towards it, without turning your back to the Tiger. I'll follow."

Slowly, we both walked towards the ladder. We both climbed to the top, the tiger watching us a few meters away from the bottom of the ladder, unable to climb after us, too docile to attempt a full-on jump at our feet, which he would probably reach.

Kate reached the top of the ladder and abruptly stopped, making me continue a few rungs until my head was almost up her dress. Ew.

"Why have you stopped?"

"Purple eyes!"

I looked around Kate and saw a man standing at the top of the ladder, a frown around his purple eyes.

Immediately, we were faced with a decision; tiger down below, or alien up above.

"Back down!" I said

"What? That's got to be at least 30 feet drop!"

"Do you like the alternative, an angry alien?"

"Good point."

I scooted down the ladder and jumped off it as I reached the end. The awake tiger was nowhere in sight. As we passed the sleeping tiger, he raised his head and gave a half-hearted swipe at our shins. I quickly dodged his heavy paw and gave a punishing flick on the beast's nose. The tiger decided he was better off to drop his head down and try to go back to sleep.

The other tiger was nowhere in sight as we exited the enclosure, but we weren't worried about the tigers.

"Why was the purple-eye here?"

"It could've been a scout."

"Maybe we underestimated them, and they've already started the attack."

"Well, we can't stop now, we need to keep going."

We keep walking in silence, slightly more jumpy than usual.

"We should skip the heavyweight animal, and go straight to the aviary. Wings are more important."

We exit the labyrinth of corridors via the Galapagos tortoise enclosure and walk over to the bird aviary, buying a bucket of popcorn on the way. I fished my wallet out of my pockets and pulled out a card, showing it to Kate.

"See this card? It's my bird of prey handling licence. I think that if we use this card and our charming smiles, we could convince the keepers to allow me into the small aviary, and then we befriend the keepers and get into the single cages, the more dangerous birds."

"Uh, use our delightful personalities? That might be a little more difficult than what it sounds like…"

I look to where Kate is pointing to, and see Cameron and Jason, trying to figure out a way to touch a large falcon.

Tell me what you think!


	13. Chapter 12

Chapter 12:

**JASON**

Cameron listed off the different birds we should get as we walked towards the aviary.

"We'll need something with talons, a bird of prey, and we'll also need something less obvious, something that can blend in. How far can ducks fly? We should get something aquatic, like a seagull."

I however, was more interested in the present.

"Oh! Cameron, look at that!"

"Yes Jason, it's just a camel. Come on, the aviary is this way."

Then I saw something that really caught my eye.

"Cameron. Screw the birds, we're morphing that thing."

Cameron followed where I was pointing. A small crowd was cramped onto a small bridge over a large pool. Inside were two giant leopard seals, twirling over each other as they played in the depths of their enclosure. The enclosure was mainly a pool, with a small island in the middle and to one of the corners. The enclosure wasn't attached to the corridors behind the other habitats; it was completely surrounded by a tall, thick glass fence and a pathway. The keeper entrance to the pool was locked a hidden glass door beside the bridge, locked by a key card.

"A seal? Aren't they like, mermaid dogs?"

"Cameron, didn't you ever read books on animals as a kid? I swear, you know nothing about animals. It's a leopard seal; one of the primary hunters of the Antarctic. If a fur seal is a mermaid dog, this is a mermaid leopard."

"Mermaid leopard, huh? That sounds pretty awesome. I wonder if it's better than our dolphin morphs. Sure, we can use our dolphin morphs for long distances, but how well can they fight?"

"The question is, how are we going to morph it?"

"Maybe if we find a way to drive out the crowd somehow…."

I didn't stay to hear the rest of his plan. I wanted that morph, and I was going to get it my usual way; wing it.

"There's a baby giraffe being born! Quick, everyone, go watch it! It's so amazing and so gross! It's the first giraffe born in the Gardens!"

Quickly, the crowd rushed off to search for the new born giraffe, cameras at the ready.

"Jason, that was pretty quick thinking. Now what?"

"Is anyone watching?"

"Nope, you managed to drive them all off!"

"Here, hold my phone."

So I jumped over the glass fence, into the pit and onto the island in the middle of the pool.

"Jason! You're in the middle of a pool, surrounded by water-leopards! I fail to see your intelligence."

"Relax, they seem pretty playful."

"They seem?! You're going on this with seem?!"

I lent down and picked up a hunk of meat, leftovers from their morning feed. I dangle it into the water.

"JASON! Do you fail to see the stupidity in this? Morph something and get out!"

A leopard seal swims over to me and bumps the meat with his nose. I retract the meat and place it on the slippery island. The leopard seal surfaces, keeping his two front flippers on the island. He snorts out water from his nose.

"See, he's not attacking me."

"I wish I had a more useful morph. How do you plan on getting out after acquiring it?"

I reach out and touch the leopard seal under his head, acquiring his DNA as I think. His fur was short, fluffier than the dolphin. He felt almost exactly what I expected a penguin to feel like. The seal tilted his head, much like a curious puppy. I finished acquiring and took my hand away.

"It's simple. I'll morph fly and get out of here."

"But what if it attacks you while you're half-morphed into a small, bite sized lump of flesh?"

I pause.

"Good point. Maybe I'll mor-"

The leopard seal turns around and dives back into the pool to join his friend. His tail knocks me backwards, sliding towards the water's edge. I hit the water and fall in, backwards. I catch a glimpse of Cameron jumping in onto the island to rescue me as I become completely submerged.

The two leopard seals glide towards me, twirling me around playfully. _Do leopard seals play with their prey?_ Cameron dives in, completely human and starts to acquire one, leaving me with only one leopard seal. He still seems like he wants to play more than eat me.

Cameron mouths something to me urgently, bubbles exiting his mouth.

"Seal! Morph seal!''

_Okay then, I'll morph seal._ Focusing on the seal twirling around me, I felt my legs snap together. My arms shortened, sinking into my chest as I grew fatter, short grey fur spurting out of my skin. My feet flattened into a tail, and my face elongated into the puppy-like snout.

As I finished my morph, I could see Cameron halfway through morphing the other leopard seal. That's when my instincts kicked in.

First came a wave of curiosity, and then came a wave of playfulness. Those feelings were easy to come over; I'd heard from numerous people that those were my natural traits anyway. Then I was hit with the hunger. I didn't realise the leopard seal's instinct to hunt would be so extreme. That's when I saw my prey.

It was a half-melded creature, with a small face without any weapons and long arms. Like me, it had a long heavy tail tipped with fins just like mine.

I swam over to it and sunk my teeth into its blubber.

(Ah! Jason! Get a grip!)

What was that voice in my head? It didn't matter now; all that really mattered was the hunt.

(Jason! Get control of your morph! It's controlling you!)

Jason? Morph? I wrestled control of my morph and unlatched myself from a Cameron, now fully morphed into the same leopard seal as me. Although he was bleeding from numerous bite marks, he seemed unharmed.

(Oh my god. I'm so sorry. Are you okay?)

(Yeah, I'm fine, let's find a way out of here quickly.)

We swam towards the island in the corner of the pool, aiming for the door which keepers take to get out. I had complete control over the morph now, but the smell of Cameron's blood still made me hungry. What we didn't count on was the other two leopard seals having control over their yearning to hunt.

Of course, they wouldn't attack a fully grown leopard seal; that would be stupid on their half.

They'd wait until Cameron surfaced first, and I follow him onto the small island. Then they'd wait until we'd started to demorph, growing legs to climb us up the stairs and out of the enclosure. That's when they'd attack.

Cameron was mostly human now, save for a seal head and flippers. Still covered in leopard seal blood from my attack, he was perfect size for attacking.

I was the last to demorph. I knew that I was faster at this morphing business, I had natural talent. I wanted to protect Cameron as he opened the door, then quickly demorph and follow him.

He was just starting to stand up as the leopard seal leaped from the water, mouth opened as it surfaced onto the island, lunging towards Cameron.

I had a quick moment of deja-vu, remembering when a hyena had leaped for me about a week ago. I scooted on my front flippers to the first leopard seal and pushed it back into the water before it could scurry over to Cameron.

Cameron frantically rushed up the stairs and tried the door.

"It's locked!"

The leopard seal resurfaced, angry at my attack and prepared to retaliate.

I prepared to defend myself when a bright red flower seemed to grow out of the side of the seal's neck. On closer inspection it is the bright, feathery end of a tranquiliser dart; the red fan part made to slow down the dart so it didn't kill the animal.

The leopard seal sank back into the pool, drowsy and annoyed. I quickly started to demorph.

Looking back at Cameron, I can see the door had been opened, and the dolphin keeper was standing in the doorway, dried off and holding the tranquiliser gun.

"You think I don't know an acquiring trance when I see one? I know what you did with those dolphins. It took me a while, but I got it. How exactly can you guys morph? I thought that there was that full-earth ray gun that took away morphing powers."

I was still half-morphing, so I was in no shape to reply.

"Please, 'mam, there's an alien invasion coming, they've already taken our town and they're preparing to take the city. They're calling it a slave harvest."

The lady looks shocked, but she believed us. Maybe it was because we had just emerged from leopard seals that she believed us, but she let us past.

"What can I do to help?"

"A way to get to dangerous animals would be nice. Apart from that, you should try to alert the authorities to watch out for people with purple eyes."

She hands me her Gardens key card from around her neck.

"Purple eyes…"

"You've seen them?"

"… I thought it was some new contact lens fashion. They've been everywhere today."

She runs off in the other direction, leaving her tranquiliser gun on the ground.

"Sweetness," Cameron says, picking it up off the ground "look what she left for us."

"Cameron, did you hear what she said? The purple-eyes have been everywhere."

"Maybe we should get backstage, away from all these people. Let's find me a battle morph, something big."

And we ran to the nearest door to the back of the Gardens, swiped the key card, and entered the corridors, looking for something that will do damage.

A security guard passed us. He looked twice at our key-card, and then kept walking.

"We get something powerful for me, and then we head straight to the aviary. No side-tracks."

Cameron chased after the man and asked him a question

"Excuse me, which way to the African elephants?"


	14. Chapter 13

Sorry this chapter took so long, I've being having exams. don't worry, they finish this week. :) Anyways, any feedback is appreciated.

Chapter 13:

KAY

We caught up with the other boys at the bird cages.

"How did you guys go?"

"I got an elephant morph. Is that good firepower?"

"Great, I was just about to mention that it would be handy having a battle morph with hands or something."

The other guys look a bit puzzled.

"You know, with the original animorphs, whenever they needed someone to grab something or use fingers; they had Ax's andalite hands, or Marco's gorilla hands. Now, we have your trunk."

Kate paused for a moment.

"That's a good idea. Although, what would happen if we're inside when we need your trunk? I think that before we leave, you should get Big Jim, the gorilla that Marco used."

We stepped into the aviary.

The Aviary is a giant round glass building, minus the roof. Walking inside, the cages are lined in a large circle around the walls and a large circular cage in the middle, leaving just enough room in-between the middle cage and the outer cages for a walkway and viewing area.

I stepped up to the middle cage. The insides were lined with ferns and vines, a tropical paradise for the more harmless birds. A zookeeper was standing on the inside, near the doorway, allowing brightly coloured parakeets to settle on his shoulders and hat while he talks with some of the viewers. I fished out my birds of prey handling licence and flashed it between the wires.

"Hey, um, excuse me. I'm Kay. This is my bird handling licence, from Australia Zoo, I worked there as a bird handler. I was wondering if I could step inside and show my friends some of the harmless birds."

The keeper stepped up to the cage and I slot the card through the chicken wire fence. He studies it, and then decides that I'm safe enough to let in.

"I guess I can allow you in, but I trust that you can keep your friends in line? Also, do you mind taking my feeding run, I… I want to check the baseball score, and I really need to pee. I'm not allowed personal radios in here, or toilets, for that matter."

"Sure, it's not a problem."

He quickly pointed out where we could find the equipment locker and slipped his key card over my neck, then ran off in search for a radio. I opened the door and all four of us stepped inside.

"Jason, I need you to run over to the locker and get me a bag of grain, a bag of mice, and any other treats you can find. There should be a trolley which you can put it all on. Oh, and I'll need a glove. See if you can find a long leather glove. Here, take this."

I slip the keeper's key card from my neck and pass it to him.

"Umm, actually…" Jason pulls his own key card from under his shirt "we got our own."

I turn back to the other two. Kate is playing with two orange parakeets, sitting on her arm. Cameron is leaning against the fence, looking glum that no bird has chosen to play with him.

"We don't have much time. Do you think we could skip these birds and try to rush and get some more dangerous ones?"

Cameron ran back to help a struggling Jason to push the trolley. I picked off the glove from the top of the food pile and put it on my hand.

"Okay Kate, you're first. Which one do you want?"

Kate takes a minute to look through each individual cage, searching for each bird. Finally, she finds one. I can't help but think that it's perfect for her, it matches her.

"This one."

"That's the swallow-tailed kite. I've always wanted one in the zoo back at home."

We step into the cage, closing the door behind the two of us.

"You guys pick out a bird," I call out to the others, "even you, Cameron. Your crow sucks."

Kate sticks to the door, eyeing the swallow-tailed bird in the top corner, eyeing her back. I step forward and put my hand out in front of me, holding a dead mouse by its hind legs. Eventually, the bird glides down to rest gently on my arm. When it flies, its tail spreads out, and I can easily see the large fork down its tail.

Kate steps forwards and goes to touch the back of its head.

"Careful, don't spook it too much."

When Kate raises her hand from the kite's back, the kite lazily flies away, leaving no time for me to acquire it.

"Woah," Says Kate "that is one beautiful bird."

We step out of the aviary to face an eager looking Jason and an enthusiastic Cameron. Kate walks over to feed the centre cage, to do the task that we were originally set.

"This way! This way! I've found the perfect bird!"

After Jason acquires a peregrine falcon and Cameron acquires his osprey, we walk out to find a dishevelled Kate, running towards us on padded feet. Black fur has started to creep up her neck. She was morphing something dangerous.

"Guys! Quick! Morph! Haven't you seen them? They've started attacking! Already!"

I focus on the DNA of the tiger and start to morph. I look around to see that Jason has already started to morph his hyena, but Cameron is looking nervously at the narrow gap between the outer and inner cages.

"I don't think I'll fit. I think I need to get something smaller, like what you said, Big Jim or something."

Kate takes charge.

(Cameron, this could be the destruction of the Gardens right now. You'll need to be quick. You buddy up with Kay. Morph bird for now.)

Cameron shrinks down to his bird morph. I finish my morph, my first time being a tiger. We'd had tigers for many years at the Australia Zoo, I knew what they could do, and they can do a lot.

(You guys ready?)

Cameron is still finishing his morph.

(You guys go on ahead; I'll catch up on wings.)

We run out of the aviary, an applause waving out from the birds lining the cages. As we reach the entrance we're hit straight away by some sort of black-smoke bomb.

(Kate!)

(Jason!)

(I can't find you guys!)

(This way!)

A hyena walks into me, sticking close.

(Kay, I can't find Kate, she's too dark to find in this cloud. And I can't smell her either.)

(Just follow me.)

We run to the closest wall and hug it as we follow our way out of the cloud. We've gone in a giant circle and ended up still inside the aviary.

(This way! A keeper exit!)

Jason bounds over to the door. Kate is nowhere to be seen.

(I still have my key card in my morph.)

(Hands, we need hands. You stay as a tiger, I'll morph out.)

Shortly afterwards, Jason is fumbling with the key card with human hands, opening the door to sunlight. He runs through with me closely following.

Blinking my eyes from the sunlight, I run into Jason's back. He's still 100% human.

(Jason, morph now, before we run into any-)

And that's when I see him; a large alien, minus the hologram, giving Jason a giant bear hug. It speaks in a raspy voice, like a talking snake.

"Demorph, tiger, or I will crush your human accomplice."

Jason still hasn't morphed, in fear that he would be killed if he tries to do anything heroic. I'm stuck in a stalemate. Then a tail sprouts from Jason's jean shorts. I try not to focus on it, but instead slowly demorph, feinting a forfeit.

From what I can see, the tail isn't something I recognise. It's long, like a cow's tail, too large for any small animals that he has, yet it doesn't remind me of anything I've already seen him as. That's when the horns make their entrance.

Shooting out of his forehead like retractable knives, two massive horns fire out of his forehead, impaling themselves at least an inch into the alien's chest, then growing upwards into an arc, throwing the purple-eye over Jason's head. I quickly reverse my demorph, losing what human features I was showing. I run over to the alien and rip off the tic-tac hologram box with my teeth. The alien falls dead.

(What did you morph?) I ask Jason. He's on his way back to hyena morph.

"A sable. Funny, I didn't think it would be very useful when I acquired it."

We run off, into the zoo, in search for a black panther and an osprey.

It's only been a few moments until we can see a giant black cat fending off a few aliens over by the Galapagos tortoise exhibit. She's hopelessly outnumbered. Most of the public have left, and the rest are cowering in corners or behind popcorn stands.

(Jason! Go! I'll find Big Jim, maybe Cameron is already there.)

We split apart, Jason towards Kate and me towards the larger exhibits. I begin to attract alien attention, and soon I'm running from six aliens, some still hologrammed, and one with a modified dracon beam.

(Kay, head towards the dolphin tank.)

It's Cameron, using long-ranged thought speak. I shift my direction and run to the stands. Pouncing over the seats, I expect to see an elephant or gorilla to my rescue, but the stands are empty. Even the dolphins are gone, locked away in their enclosures. I reach the bottom of the stands, right next to the pool and make my ground. I can swim away if I'm desperate.

The aliens have increased in numbers. Twelve of them hobble down the steps, and one more stands up at the top of the stands, aiming at me with his dracon beam. He misses well off. I suppose the beams are mainly for short range.

As the first alien reaches me, I swipe its leg, just like what I saw Kate do when I was watching them as a cockatoo. It overbalances and falls down. I leap over him and ferociously rip out the next alien's throat. The next two attack at the same time. I'm too slow to overcome them, and soon I'm hopelessly defending myself from five aliens, while more are waiting from invisible sidelines, waiting to take the place of a fallen comrade.

_Cameron, where are you?_

I've just about given up hope when Cameron comes to the rescue in possibly one of the most dangerous battle morphs we've used yet.


	15. Chapter 14

Chapter 14:

CAMERON

I morphed into my osprey and flew up out of the top of the roofless aviary. Surveying the destruction brought upon from these aliens, I can see keepers and people running to the exits, hiding in harmless exhibits and behind souvenir counters.

Kate is off fighting aliens by herself. Wait, no, not by herself. I see an alien drop down a few metres from joining the fray, a feathery red bullet protruding from its neck. It's the dolphin keeper again, standing on a icecream stand, picking off aliens with her tranquiliser gun before they can reach Kate.

I fold in my wings and dive bomb a purple-eye attacking Kate. I try Tobias's famous move, aiming to rake my talons across its eyes. I miss, but I use my momentum to swerve onto a different alien, talons clutching around its tic-tac box hologram projector. I rip out some of the wiring, and surprisingly, the alien falls down, dead.

(Cameron, get the gorilla. It's your last chance. I'll be fine.)

(Are you sure?) I say, aiming for another alien's eyes, this time not missing.

(Go!)

I open my wings and raise myself up above the zoo again. I manage to see Jason's genius move with the sable morphing. He could possibly be the first morpher to use morphing as a weapon, rather than using the morph itself. I reach the two guys just as they split apart. Kay seems to be in trouble. I need to morph something that can help.

(Kay, head towards the dolphin tank.)

I turn and make a beeline towards the water. As I reach the pool, I've already started to demorph. I hit the water half-human and swim to the back edge as I demorph, then I start to morph something else.

I focus on bringing up the leopard seal's DNA to the surface; the mermaid leopard. Soon, I'm a leopard seal in the depths of a dolphin pool, just as the first aliens reach Kay.

I submerge myself completely. The tank has to be deep to protect the dolphins from their high re-entries from the air, so I can sink down to at least 35 feet deep.

I start to power myself along the bottom, kicking my tail flippers and folding myself into a hydro-dynamic shape. I spurt from the edge of the pool and fall over the barrier, landing on a pile of aliens, using my momentum to swing my heavy tail to the side to take out a few more.

I give a loud roar and throw myself at the nearest alien, or, at least, I try to. All I can move out of the water is my neck. The rest of me have become pretty useless. I start to worry about protecting my back when four paws climb up my tail.

It's Kay, in his tiger morph. He's badly injured in his leg, but he'll protect my back.

I swing my jaws at the nearest purple-eye, taking off his arm from above the dangerous metal, and then use his sharp elbow spikes to stab into the next alien.

I use my head as a battering ram, swinging from side to side, up and down jaws clamping upon limbs and heads and I manage to fend off the aliens. By the time Kay has finished with the two aliens left behind me, I've taken out the other five, plus the ones I'm currently sitting on.

Kay runs up the stands to take out the purple-eye with the dracon beam. I quickly demorph, walking up the stands to meet Kay.

(Take the dracon beam.)

"Are you sure, I could just morph bird, or pit-bull?"

(Dude, I'm almost dead here, I need some help on the ground.)

I reach down and pick up the gun. It's slightly different to the ones I've seen on TV. They're smaller than the dragon beams, almost too small for human hands, about the size of a pistol.

"Hey, if you squint your eyes, this thing almost looks like a NERF gun or a water pistol."

Kay looks back with unamused eyes.

"Right, Big Jim. Do you want to remorph?"

(Nah, I'll survive.)

And then we run out of the stands, picking off any aliens who get in our way, heading towards the gorilla enclosure.

We reach the enclosure to find a small hole burnt through the mesh covering. I angle the dracon bean upwards, and melt a line up the fence. I hold apart the fence with my hands for Kay to jump through, then climb through myself. I find myself landing in a large watery moat, surrounding the tropical island where four or five gorillas are going crazy.

Kay swims up to me, paddling with his front paws. I hold onto his neck and we swim over to the beach.

(The explosions have driven them wild. They're all too hyped up to acquire. It's too dangerous while they're all this hyper.)

"What about food, can we occupy them with that?"

(Nah, they'll have to be hungry)

Kay starts to demorph.

"Kay! What are you doing? I need protection!"

"Relax, I'm going to give them something to watch."

He wades into the moat and starts to turn blubbery and grey. He's morphing dolphin.

"You might want t-"(to cover yourself in mud or something, hide from the gorillas, you're going to sneak up and acquire it and then run away.)

I reach down and slap mud into my clothes, I commando-crawl my way across the bank, towards the huddle of gorillas. I snuggle down into the mud, patting a bit more onto my head, my knees reaching the water level.

(Don't forget, it's the big silverback you want.)

I nod my head, eyes trained on the largest gorilla. That's when Kay starts his performance.

I can't turn my head to watch, but I can hear him. There's the initial splash as he exits the water, then the squeaking of him calling for attention, then the loud splash of re-entry. He continues this for a while until the gorillas notice him.

At first they are curious. They've never seen such strange water-creatures before. They stroll over to the water's edge and watch the spectacle. The silverback gorilla is just metres to my left. I see some of the gorillas that are at the back of the pack look to my right. Kay must be moving, trying to draw the silverback closer to me.

The gorilla takes a few more steps towards me.

(Don't get crushed, acquire it quickly.)

I reach out with a muddy arm and try to touch the silverback's foot. Instead, the silverback takes another step towards me planting his foot on my arm. I hear a bone crack.

I take a mouthful of disgusting mud to stifle my screams, but I'm certain that at least one gorilla has seen me.

(Acquire it! Quickly! They've noticed you!)

I start to acquire the silverback through my broken arm. I can almost feel the DNA seeping through his foot into my arm. _What if the DNA falls out from my blood?_ The other gorillas start to touch my other arm and head, deciding if I'm a threat.

I panic, and step up, but my arm is trapped under the silverback foot, still in his acquiring trance. I push the dazed silverback into the shallows and try to step back to the moat. I'm too late, the other gorillas have got their 'angry faces' on and are looking pretty threatening, that is, until they get a face full of dolphin, launched from the moat.

(Go, morph bird or something!)

I can't swim with my broken arm, but I'm sure once I morph something I'll get out. I push myself backwards into the water and focus on an osprey morph. I'm relieved that I chose a water hunter, or else I'd have to stay on dry ground to morph some wings.

Kay is trying to roll back into the water, but he's sunk too far into the mud.

(Kay, you've scared off the gorillas, I think you can demorph.)

As soon as he has legs, he starts running towards the keeper's entrance at the back of the enclosure, a horrible dolphin-human centaur gone wrong. As he reaches the door, now fully human, I swoop in behind him, demorphing as I hit the floor.

"Battle morphs."

I nod. It's time to try out this gorilla morph. I've just demorphed and Kay is halfway to turning fully tiger when the wall opposite the gorilla enclosure explodes inwards, opening out into a terrified camel enclosure.


	16. Chapter 15

Chapter 15:

JASON

Kate and I fought together, holding our ground against the waves of purple eyes. Snapping my jaws around their unprotected left legs, I crumpled their balance, tipping them over themselves. The dolphin keeper had left a while ago, although there were plenty of aliens with tranquiliser darts sticking from their necks on the floor.

Kate was a black smudge in the corner of my eye, weaving in and around the purple-eyes, climbing up the aliens and destroying them, ripping through aliens. I was too distracted by abolishing aliens to notice that Kate was struggling.

(I… I need to remorph.)

(What? Can't you just hold it out or something?)

(Jason, I've got three legs.)

I didn't want to look, but I made myself. Kate was stumbling on one front leg, unable to rear up and swipe with her paws. I backed up to her, defending her against her attackers.

(Go! Quickly!)

I sent out a loud high pitched whine to draw the aliens to me while Kate hobbled through the fray, in search of a safe place to remorph. I was alone again.

I held my stance, slowly picking out each alien methodically as they attacked. I was surviving, but I was losing my stamina. I couldn't keep up fighting while the aliens poured in in endless supply.

I tripped, regained my balance and picked my next target, a large alien with short arm-spikes. Bunching up my back legs to attack, I feel a stab of pain in my hindquarters as an alien drives his elbow spike into the top of my back leg.

Taken by surprise, my back legs crumple on the ground, and in the time it takes to stand up, I'm already surrounded. _Where are you, Kate?_

That's when a grey streak leaps over my head and drives itself into the purple eye closest to me. Barely a second is spent on the first alien when it leaps straight onto the closest alien, leaving a trail blood still on its wicked-sharp fangs. It's a wolf.

Diving from purple-eye to purple eye, the wolf attacks the pack of aliens with such ferocity that none of the new animorphs had seen before. It obviously isn't one of us; this wolf has had way too much practice at ripping out throats to be an amateur like us.

It's only when the wolf comes to a halt on a fallen alien's chest and jerks its attention towards me. What if the wolf is an escaped animal, how will it know to not attack me?

(Hey, Hyena, a little help here?)

The girl's thoughtspeak shakes me out of my trance. So it is a morpher. I walk over to the wolf and take a fighting stance beside her. With her aggressive fighting style and me as backup, we manage to not only overcome the crowd around us, but slowly move down the path.

(I have friends, they could be in trouble. We have to get to them.)

The wolf grunts, and continues fighting, but I spot her nose twitching, using her keener sense of smell to detect the others.

(I smell blood that way, I'm guessing it's one of your guys. How many of you are there?)

(There are three more.)

We fight our way over to the new battlefield. Kate has remorphed into her rhino morph and the other two, Kay as a tiger and Cameron presumably as the gorilla are guiding her like a battering ram.

(Turn left a bit. Yeah, now Charge!)

Cameron is climbing around the heavy rhino, swinging a heavy rubbish bin at any aliens who manage to reach Kate's flank. Kay is darting around the stumpy legs, warding off any more purple-eyes from the ground. They seem to be surviving, I'm glad.

(Watch it! Otter tank dead ahead!)

Kate brakes sharply and runs off to the side, throwing Cameron off to the side. Kay continues with Kate, guiding her through the next patch of purple-eyes. I turn to the wolf at my side.

(To the gorilla!)

We bound along to Cameron, circling him from both sides, two deadly foreign dog species. Protecting him as he recovers from his crash, we take down any stray aliens together.

(Woah, who got the wolf morph? How did a wolf morph manage to fight better than a rhino?)

(I have no idea, but she's on our side)

The wolf speaks up.

(There's a whole squadron more coming from the theme park side of the Gardens, they're using it as a drop off point for troops. We have to get out before we're overrun. You all have bird morphs?)

Cameron nodded as he stepped up, hefting his rubbish bin on his shoulder.

(Find a safe place to morph bird, I'll hold them off here as well as I can, I'll take the rhino with me too. Once you're morphed bird, meet at the McDonalds across the road, and we'll fly out together.)

Cameron runs off to tell the others, while I search for a place to morph. I step into the enclosure behind me, landing into a shallow pit filled with thick foliage and a scared deer-creature. I quickly demorph and morph into my peregrine falcon morph, rising myself up out of the enclosure at the same time as Kay rises out of the ruins of the bathrooms, a wedge-tailed eagle.

Kate and the wolf are still fighting down below, near Big Jim's enclosure. An osprey rises from the moat around the gorilla habitat; it's Cameron.

The three birds swoop down and attack the remaining aliens, quickly trying to destroy the remaining troops before more arrive in greater numbers. Without much time left, the wolf jumps onto Kate's back and orders her to run into the gorilla pit. They crash into the water, already demorphing.

Soon enough, another osprey rises from the moat while Kate stumbles onto the land to morph her bird. We rise as the new army floods into the zoo, but Kate hasn't finished her morph.

Kate, now a swallow-tailed kite, flies out of the pit and into a mass of aliens, waiting at the path. Using quick reactions and her specially forked tail, she darts between the aliens, flipping from white to black sides as she weaves her thin wings between arms and legs. Soon, she shoots out into the open air, flapping furiously to gain enough height to be out of range from any dracon beams.

We arrive back at the apartment by flying through the window, giving Mike a heart attack as his most deadly predators swoop into his nap time. We all demorphed straight away, eager to find out more about this new girl. I managed to keep up with the new girl's fast morphing speed, but the others were still half bird when she stepped up on human legs.

She was African-American, and strangely enough, she was wearing a leotard, like those gymnastic uniforms. Her black frizzy hair was tied up in a tight bun, keeping it out of the way. She looked about 19-20 years old, at least three years older than us. I recognised her immediately. I'm sure some of the others did too, but they still had beaks.

"Cassie? As in, the original animorphs Cassie?"

"So, these are the new animorphs. Not bad, I guess you'll have to do with all these new aliens roaming around now."

"But, shouldn't you be older? I thought you were dead? What about the other animorphs? Are they here too?"

"No, they all left for some interstellar warfare, I haven't seen them since. When they left, I fell into a depression, and I spent most of my time as a wolf, or a bird, or even as some random people I acquired during the war, working at the Gardens. I wore an alarm watch, so I could remorph every two hours, but while I was spending time as a different being, my original body didn't age. I'm technically twenty five, but physically, I'm nineteen. Or twenty, I had trouble counting the years I was myself."

The others have finished morphing, and Kate is cuddling Mike.

Kay speaks up and offers his hand for a handshake

"I'm Kay, from Australia. Nice to meet you."

"Australia huh? I went there once, by accident. I love your kangaroo morphs; they're amazing."

I felt a little out of the conversation, so I but in.

"I have a kangaroo morph too! Except, I haven't tried it out yet."

Cameron steps forward.

"Cameron." He says, shaking her hand. I can tell he's a bit pissed at Cassie joining us. Maybe he just wanted a group of kids his age, not some older girl who is going to take charge.

"And I'm Kate. I'm just glad I finally have another girl to speak with now. You're going to have to tell me everything about your time being an Animorph."

"That might have to wait" says Cameron, watching the skies from the windows.

A large spaceship has cloaked over the city, blocking out the sunlight. Shaped like a large diamond, it spans the distance of five football stadiums. In the centre is a smaller hole where car-sized ships are darting in and out, like ants excavating sand from an anthill.

"The Mothership," whispers Cassie "I bet those smaller ships are transporting their 'slaves'."

She turns around and addresses us all like a military leader.

"Right, I'm going to need a list of morphs that each of you have, and then get some rest. We'll find a way of getting in tonight. You," she points at me "the estreen, you start writing first."

"What did you call me?"

"Estreen."

"A what?" I have no idea what she called me, but it sounded rude. I'm offended.

"A morphing estreen, like me? We have a natural talent for morphing. Some andalite estreens use morphing as an art form."

Cameron speaks up

"Maybe that would explain why you are such a fast morpher than the others, and how you hid those fly wings from me when we first… ah…. met."

Kay chips in too.

"And when you were held by that purple-eye, and you morph your sable antlers to push him back, not many people would've been able to morph the antlers straight away without morphing the rest of the body."

I guess he's right, morphing was a different experience to me than what I'd read in books. It's a lot smoother, faster. I guess I am an estreen, like Cassie.

"Wait a mo, Cassie, didn't you lose your morphing powers when the anti-morphing ray went off?"

"You really think the Andalites would've taken the morphing power from one of their most treasured war heroes? They took me aboard their ship when the ray went off, and gave me the choice of going to their home or back to Earth. I chose Earth, but I was allowed to keep my morphing abilities. Now, Jason, get writing."

She throws a pad and pen into my arms, and walks over to the window to study the mothership.


	17. Chapter 16

Chapter 16:

**KATE**

I woke to the sound of the elevator dinging open outside the apartment door. Cassie steps in the door, closing the door to avoid waking the others.

She has gone out and bought new clothes, a tight leather suit that looked a lot like Mariah Hill's outfit in _The Avengers_. She had a thin leather belt around her waist, and she carried an army duffel bag over her shoulder.

The sun has set, the moon's light shining through the open window-wall.

She unzips the duffel bag and empties the contents onto the smaller couch beside me. Guns, knives and other assorted weapons and equipment spill out. I pretend to be asleep. I'm still very tired.

"You might want to wake the others; we're leaving in an hour."

Damn. How did she know I was awake? I sit up and stretch my arms, Mike unfurling from being curled up in the nook of my stomach. I step up off the couch and walk off in search of the other boys. After waking them, I walk back to the living room to find Cassie strapping on guns and knives to her belt and thighs.

"Woah, that's a lot of weapons." says Jason, rubbing his eyes. He has gained messy bed hair, making him look even younger. It's cute.

"Hey, don't strap these so tight, you might cut off the circulation and then you won't be able to run so well." Cameron steps over to Cassie and tries to loosen the knife around her calve.

"Stop. I need to make sure everything morphs with me. It has to be skin tight."

"Trust me, you can morph stuff way looser than this, we've all done it before. I morphed IPhones and wallets all the time back when I was… uh, at home."

"I still have the old morphing technology. I've gotten better at morphing clothes, but all I can manage is very tight clothes."

I speak up. "What if you touch one of the new cubes, I have two in the freezer?"

"It won't work; I tried on the Andalite ship. You might want to lock those up somewhere though."

"Oh, I forgot, I haven't finished my plan with them."

I walk over to the freezer and take out the container. The bottom layer of dyed water has frozen completely now, creating a thick layer of ice around the bottom. I place the two cubes on top, well away from the edges of the container. I pour some more water on top, completely submerging the cubes with at least another inch of water. I empty the rest of the food dye in the water and swirl it around. Soon enough, the water is so murky I can't even see the cubes anymore. I place the finished product back into the freezer.

Jason looks confused at my process.

"I don't get it, what did you just do to them?"

"When it's fully frozen, they will be covered from all sides with coloured ice, so you can't see the cubes inside. That way, no bugs will touch it, and if anyone finds it, they'll have to wait for it to melt before the can reach the cubes."

Cassie is impressed. "That's ingenious Kate!"

She starts chucking leather belts with guns strapped to them around the room. One lands on the kitchen bench in front of me.

"Put these on, we're leaving soon. You all know how to use a gun?"

"It's just like on TV, right?" Jason, of course.

With a roll of her eyes, Cassie teaches us to fire the small handguns. She takes the smallest, thinnest gun for herself and straps it as close to her body as possible, right on her hip. She opens a large window and props it open.

We all start to morph birds. On seeing Cameron start to morph his osprey, Cassie makes an annoyed morph.

"Just once, I hoped to be the only osprey morpher…"

She then follows us, quickly catching up with our morphs. We soar out of the window in single file, Cassie leading the way, Jason in the back. We didn't have to spread out to fly like the older animorphs, with the aliens being so public, seeing so many birds of prey together will give hope to any survivors, hope that the animorphs are back.

(When I was out, I noticed the aliens have stopped attacking. They've created a barricade at certain streets, and have gathered all the people inside it. They are scanning them, possibly for their holograms, and then taking them into those smaller ships up to the mother ship. There's about thirty in each ship.)

(Can we fly up through the hole in the bottom?)

(No, they'll notice us. I think we should try taking a ship up. Has any of you tried to morph one of the aliens?)

Nobody had. We crossed the barricade, cars piled onto each other to block off the streets. Straight away, we could see a difference; fires were still lit in some shops, pieces of smashed concrete lying around the street.

We spot one guard, out of sight from any other aliens and descend towards it. In a flurry of attacking birds, the purple-eye didn't notice as a gorilla morphed behind him and knocked him out with a sledgehammer fist.

Cassie was the first human crouched beside him, the rest of us still demorphing.

"I'm going to try to morph it, see if it works. One of you guys be ready if I go all murderous."

With Cameron standing behind her, fist at the ready, Cassie started to demorph. Straight away, we could see a problem. The morphing was going fine, except she was missing quite a few limbs.

"Cassie! You only have your left foot!"

Cassie began to morph out.

"I think those metal limbs are attached after birth. They're unmorphable"

"What if we detach the limbs and put them on after?"

"I don't think that will work, they've probably grown into them, they won't be able to fit onto a fully grown purple-eye."

"Well, what do we do instead?"

"We'll go small, sneak in, demorph on the ship and use our guns as a first weapon, then morph dangerous and find a way to get to the slaves and get them back on Earth. I'm guessing most of you would have fly morphs from that three month rule?"

Together, we managed to muster four flies and a moth, the moth being Cameron.

We flew towards the closest ship, three guards packing people into the small area. Once thirty people were inside, two of the guards sealed the chamber with glass doors. They then stepped into the ship themselves, taking the two seats outside the glass doors. A large grey door closed in on top of them, and the ship flew off.

(Three guards, two one the ship, one to help with the loading. Three dracon beams, plus one emergency beam on the inside of the door. There are sliding glass doors sealing the humans from the aliens, locks from some hidden machine on the inside of the ship's mechanism.)

Wow. Cassie was good at this. A new ship arrived and we flew in as it was half loaded. Cameron made to stop in the top corner.

(No Cameron, stay under shoulder height so none of the aliens see you.)

We flew down, hiding on the inside of a man's suit pants.

(I'm going to try to contact one of the humans.)

(No, let Kate. She is a master at speaking, you should see what she does to the keepers.)

(Fine, Kate, do your thing, just, don't tell everyone. We don't want to risk someone giving away our position accidentally.)

My thing? All I did was tell a convincing lie. It's not like I had to lie to these people, I had to keep them calm.

(Um, hello there, this is the new animorphs.) I broadcasted my thoughtspeech to five of the closest prisoners. (We need you all to keep calm; we're going to have to demorph inside here. Is it possible that some of you could start crying or something loud, the morphing sounds gross, but the aliens might hear us.)

(Good job Kate. I don't think we'll all fit demorphing here, so I'll go, and so will Jason. If we need to morph, we can use our estreen powers to morph quicker and do that thing Jason did before with the sable antlers, and use the morphing itself as a weapon. Does anyone have a small battle morph, something that will fit in here easily?)

(I have a bobcat.) I said.

(Okay, Kate, you morph bobcat first. Jason and I'll morph human, and when the battle starts, Kay and Cameron morph big battle morphs, tiger and gorilla.)

I broadcasted the plans to the five people again.

(Okay, I'm going to morph out, then morph a bobcat. Two more of us will morph out too, but you can't bring any attention to us. When the doors open, you have to get out of the way. Oh, the crying wouldn't be too bad now.)

I climbed out of the pants and started to demorph, ending up in a foetal position around the man's leg. Masked by the sound of two ladies bawling their eyes out, Jason and Cassie demorphed as well, brandishing their handguns. I was halfway to morphing bobcat when Cassie was finished. She stood up, put her finger to her lips, and pulled a knife out of her belt, holding it in her other hand.

I found a lady with a long dress, one of the crying ladies that I contacted before, and hid inside her dress, careful not to look up.

There came a few mechanical clunking sounds, and then the outer doors opened. As soon as the aliens moved to open the glass doors, I spoke to the other prisoners.

(Animorphs coming through! Everyone move out the way!)

The people fell to the sides, the ones in the middle ducking. I jumped out of the ladies dress and ran across people's crouched down backs, leaping through the small opening between the glass doors. I caught the first guard by surprise, raking my claws through its eyes, biting its lizard-like face. The other guy was taken out by Cassie's bullet, shot through the glass and taking him by surprise.

Three more guards ran through the tunnel towards the ship. Cassie raised her gun again. But it started shaking ferociously. The first purple-eye had glowing eyes, focused on Cassie's weapon. Suddenly, her gun flew into the air, a metre from her face to be met with Jason's gun. They crumpled together, and then dropped, a pile of smoking metal.

"Well, I guess that's what happens when they say guns won't work on them."

"No time to talk about that now Jason, get fighting."

Cassie jumped over the group of people, hefting her hunting knife. Driving it into the alien I was currently fighting, she dug it out and threw it at the closest alien. Jason ran past her, without a weapon, and ducked under the alien's punch, rolling through the unarmoured left leg. Standing up behind it, Jason grabbed it by the shoulders and bit into its neck, growing hyena jaws just as he connected with the scaly flesh.

Cassie threw herself onto the next alien, seeming to grow a lot of weight as she landed. As soon as her feet started to meld into whale flippers, she reversed the morph and went back to human, leaving a squashed alien on the floor.

I ducked back into the ship to morph something bigger, passing a half-morphed tiger and gorilla. Jason, now fully hyena, was fighting three more aliens. Cassie was still fighting, a half-morphed polar bear.

By the time I'd finished my panther morph, the others had finished all the aliens, a pile of dead bodies in the corner of the tunnel. Cassie began to demorph.

(We're going to need to be sneaky, but strong.)

When Cassie had remorphed to a wolf, she looked down the corridor. It branched off to the left and right, both identical pathways.

(So,) said Jason (find the humans, get them home, find a way to make these aliens leave. I say the left path.)

And we headed down the path to the left.


	18. Chapter 17

Chapter 17:

**KAY**

We ran through corridors, taking down each patrol of guards as we searched for something important; the bridge or the slave containment place. Suddenly, we all stopped, sniffing the air.

(Can you guys smell that?)

(Definitely.)

(What? Guys, a gorilla can't smell as good as all you hunters. What is it?)

(Animal poop.)

(Well, animals in general.)

(So, you're saying that there's a pet storage or something?)

(No, probably the animals from the Gardens. Maybe for an intergalactic petting zoo or something.)

(Well, what are we going to do about it? We're here for the humans and to take down this ship.)

We all seemed to agree, except Cassie. Of course, she was the animal lover.

(Split up. Kay, you take someone and find a way to get the animals contained and on Earth, then sniff us out.)

I nodded, and then we split apart. I checked behind be to see who followed me. It was Cameron.

(Hi there. Thought you might need some strength.)

We ran along the tunnels for a while, not running into any patrols, following my nose.

We reached a sealed door, guarded by two purple-eyes. I was on them before Cameron could even reach the door. Clawing into the first one's chest and ripping out his throat, I jumped straight onto the next one as he was falling over.

Cameron caught up, panting.

(You know, this morph isn't as much of a runner as yours.)

I was busy looking at the door.

(Locked.)

Cameron shoved a ham-sized fist into the keypad beside the door and ripped out a handful of coloured wires. The door slid open.

(Open sesame.)

We walked inside and looked around us. We had reached a large warehouse, lined with aisles of large metal containers, some as large as elephants, some as small as cat carriers. I walk over to one of them and sniff at its corner.

(I smell zebra's in this one.)

I walk through the first aisle

(Red pandas, otters, Cameron, here's your gorilla friend.)

I look back to see that Cameron is busy looking at the floor.

(You see this crack down the middle of this floor? Well, these animals wouldn't have fit through that door, so I think they were lifted up through the floor. This whole room is a giant trapdoor.)

(Wait, so there should be a spacecraft to fit all these animals on. They'd have loaded the animals on, flown in, closed the doors and unloaded the animals.)

We search the room for the craft. Eventually we found it in the back corner. It was a large square, raised slightly to fit large metal cylinders under each corner. A podium was set in the corner, lined with simple controls.

"So, we get the animals on the platform, then open the floor, and fly it down to earth. That seems simple enough."

I didn't even notice Cameron demorph.

(Seems. Not 'is'.)

Cameron starts to morph something else

"We're going to nebe-"(need some power. See if you can find a space tow truck or galactic forklift.)

He bulks up as a long nose sprouts from his face. Thick tusks grow from his lips, and his ears flap out into large leathery sheets.

I search around the room for a while, looking for some piece of machinery. There is none to be found. In the meantime, Cameron has managed to move two average-sized crates onto the platform, pushing them up the heavy ramp.

I demorph and walk over to the current crate he's struggling with.

"Have you tried unlocking the brakes?"

(Huh?)

I lean down to the thick wheel in the bottom corner and flick the tag upwards.

"It's like a stroller. The tags are pushed down for brakes, pulled up for rolling."

(Oh, that seems easier now.)

He reaches down and unlocks the other brake. The crate glides easily across the floor and up the ramp. It could quite possibly roll easier from some floating space technology, but as long as it moves I'm happy.

"Don't forget to brake it when you reach the platform."

(Don't you have a morph with a strong push or something?)

I rack my brains to think of a good morph to use. I have no heavy-duty morphs, but I could still help. I unlock a few of the smaller crates that are far away from the platform and pull them out to the aisle. I started to morph kangaroo. I'd seen a few kangaroos do this in my time at Australia Zoo, and I really wanted to try it out.

Leaning back on my thick tail, I braced my feet against the crate and kicked out with my strong legs. The crate whooshed down the aisle, closer to the platform. I kicked the next few small crates, but in ten minutes, I'm out of small crates. All that's left are the larger ones, ones that I should leave to Cameron's elephant morph. If only there was a way to help.

I hear the door behind me slide open. We should've hidden those guards.

(Guards are here!) I call out, hoping Cameron is in range.

As strange as they look, a red kangaroo is actually very dangerous, able to take down boxers and even the strongest of men. I turned and began to hop towards the aliens. They're armed with dracon beams, but they haven't seen me yet. I jump onto the nearest crate, an easy jump from the ground to the top of a few hippos. Landing with a thud, I continue up the row of crates, using my height as cover from their sight and dracon beams. I quickly reach the end of the row, directly above the three guards.

Without wasting time, I jump onto the three, sending them skidding along the ground. One of them is knocked out, and dracon beams go skidding along the floor. I take out the next one as he picks himself up from the floor, giving a strong kick with both of my back legs into his arse. He flies the few metres into the crates, knocking his head on the heavy metal.

I ready myself for the last guard. Leaping over his head, I receive a strong dracon beam to my tail. I stumble to my feet, but my tail is having trouble holding myself up. The purple-eye raises his dracon beam and prepares to fight, but he gets no further as a rhino crate rolls over him.

(You know, for the smaller morph, you're surprisingly louder than I am.)

I start to demorph.

(Thanks Cam.)

(Don't demorph.) Cameron looks through the doorway. A squadron of purple-eyes are running through the corridor, brandishing their dracon beams.

The door slides shut in their faces, locking itself.

(Was that you, or….)

An intercom fizzles into life, Cassies voice broken through the connection.

"You guy's better get a move on, we've already secured the bridge." We hear a roar. "Well, mostly secured. I'm going to try to contact the army or something while the others will find the humans. I've locked you guys in, so you have some privacy while you work. Oh, and I found this."

The roof slides open as Cassie, somewhere far away pushes a button. Revealed through the next floor is what seems to be a large arcade game of 'the claw', except the claw is replaced by a giant metal square.

"I think it works through magnetism. Anyways, the controls are in the viewing platform above the loading ship. When you're finished, find a way to set off an alarm, I think I can send the ship down from here while you guys come find me."

The intercom stops crackling.

(Well, I'll stay in this morph while you use the crane?)

After a few demorphs and bird morphs, I find myself at a large joystick in the viewing platform. By experimentally twisting it, I find I can move the large metal square. I press a button, and the crates underneath it raise up and stick to the sheet.

"Aw man, this is awesome."

I move the crates to the platform and drop them in the corner, while Cameron moves the ones closer to the platform. In twenty minutes, we've finished.

(How do we get out?)

I morph eagle and fly down.

(We set off some kind of alarm I guess. You have any ideas?)

(Try this one.) He hands me a discarded dracon beam, passing it to my half-human, half-bird hands.

I pick it up and aim for the door.

(No, I got the door. try the crane.)

I aim for the controls at the corner of the room. Squeezing the trigger, I send a blast off to the side. I regain my grip with two hands and try again. I send a straight shot through the controls.

(Woah, nice hit!)

The crane goes crazy, swinging back and forwards.

"Open the door, open it now!"

Cameron shoves his bulk against the door, bending the metal inwards.

An alarm whines off, screaming its warning cry.

Cameron throws his shoulder into the door, creating a small gap between the two metal walls.

The floor starts to slide open as Cassie's voice is heard once again.

"Sorry guys, I can't stop it! Quickly get out of there! I can start the animal's ship to float down, but the doors are too bent to open!"

Cameron throws himself against the door again. The gap grows larger.

I slide myself through the gap.

Cameron has one more push before the floor slides past the door, forcing Cameron to move out of the way.

(Morph wings!)

I've already begun my change to wedge tailed eagle, ready to jump through the gap as soon as I'm air-worthy.

The animal-carrier starts to whirr, and then lifts itself out of the room and slowly down to Earth.

I fly through the gap, still changing my feet to talons. I see Cameron, a human with a trunk, plastered against the far wall, watching the floor slide closer to him, trapped. I claw my talons into his shoulders and try to lift him up as he morphs into something small.

He gains feathers as the floor reaches him. Only holding on with his fingernails to the cracks in the wall, I'm doing my best to take his weight. He morphs his head and his talons before decreasing size, and decreasing weight. Still without wings, he allows me to carry him back to the door, dropping him through the gap as I struggle to fold myself to fit in.

Lying on the floor, he finished up his bird morph.

(Never. Again.)

(Agreed.)

We take a second to catch our breath until Cassie rings in through the intercom.

"Yeah, yeah, well done, pat on the feathery back and all that. Now, hurry. There are troops to the corridor to the left and straight ahead. Take a right turn and continue along."

Cameron starts to demorph.

"No time for battle morphs, just fly!"

We start down the corridor, guided by Cassie from the bridge.


	19. Chapter 18

Chapter 18:

**CAMERON**

We reach the bridge as Cassie finishes speaking to someone on the intercom. We enter the doorway and perch on a seat, startling Cassie. She whirls around on the balls of her feet, brandishing her knife.

"Woah, I thought you were more of them."

She gestured with her head to the pile of purple-eyes in the corner.

(Who were you speaking to?)

"I got in touch with the military. Their gun's crumple as soon as they are within range of the aliens, even plastic guns. They still are trying to fight with what they've got, but it's a bit difficult when tanks fold in on themselves and missiles explode before they reach their targets. I think they're going to take it slow, find a way to attack these guys."

(That's stupid? We're already here! It's too late to take things slow!)

"That's what I said, but they just told me to get out with as many of us new animorphs as possible, and wait for the military to take action. "

(We can't stop now, once we're off this it's going to be even trickier to get on, they'll be watching for us.)

"I know that. I've set the controls to leave Earth in five hours. It took a little working out, but I targeted Mars with all the starboard dracon cannons."

(What?!) Kay and I yell out.

"Relax! I've set them to 230%, so they'll overload before they fire and destroy the mothership instead. I don't think it'll be enough to take out the whole craft, but they won't be coming back."

Cassie leans down to a fallen alien. Taking two dracon beams from his holsters, she fires into the controls, and then fits them into her empty belt.

"I don't know what it is about these guns, but they can't do that weapon trick on them. We'll have to be fast now, don't bother demorphing, it will waste too much energy."

Yellow fur grows from her skin, fangs growing from her mouth. Her morphing suit disappears under the fur, melding into her body.

(Think you guys can keep up with a cheetah?)

(Bring it.)

I definitely shouldn't have said that, because the next ten minutes we strained our wings to the maximum, trying to keep up with Cassie as she waits at each turn.

(Hurry up.)

(We're trying. You're not giving us much time to catch out breaths.)

She just sighed and kept running. Soon enough, we could hear sounds of human chattering, not the purple-eyed squealing and grunts that have been echoing down the metal corridors for the past hours.

(We're getting close.)

We rounded the next corner and came to a large steel courtyard. Around the rectangular walls were barred doors, prisons to fit twenty humans cramped into the small quarters. There were numerous floors, rising up to a bright white ceiling, the main light source of the room. The top floors were so small up above us in the distance, it was impossible to tell how many levels there were. Humans were crying, yelling out over the different floors for loved ones.

There were at least a hundred humans already freed, merging on the rings of balconies and in the courtyard below. Cassie demorphed and looked around the room. Kay and I continued flying, rising up to the top floors. The very last floor was only half-filled, some of its rooms empty and open.

(I guess they were almost finished with filling up the whole room. These empty rooms were probably for the few humans left back on earth, and the one that we intercepted.)

Kay was focused on the larger picture, the one about him.

(Dad! Dad! Can you hear me? It's Kay!)

The humans continued to scream out, reaching through the bars to us.

(It's no use Kay, I've been looking for my mum for ages. It's just best if you free them all, we'll eventually find him. Jason found his brother.)

We dived down to the source of the thoughtspeech. Soon enough, at the fourth and fifth level, we came across a rhino and a bison; Kate and Jason.

(We have to just break them out, and the easiest way is at the keypads.)

Kate lowered her horn underneath a keypad protruding from the wall and lifted the pointed spike up through the machine, ripping it from the wall. Stepping to the left and hooking her horn through the bars, she slid the metal door to the side, into its slot in the wall.

Jason did a similar thing to the bars a few doors down, swinging his smaller horns into the keypads. An older version of Jason, about Cassie's physical age was standing next to him, helping to slide the doors to the side. I guessed that it was Toby, his older brother.

Another osprey flew up beside us and demorphed. We followed her actions, demorphing from our bird morphs. Cassie took out her two dracon beams and adjusted the settings. She walked over to Toby and handed him a gun.

"Here. Just point at a keypad, and shoot. Grab a few men, make a team, and slide the bars open together."

Toby looked down at the gun and back to Cassie, unsure of what to do.

"Go, take the next level. We'll split up onto different levels too. When you're done with all the prisons on the level, climb up the stairs until you find another empty floor, then start opening those cages."

"I don't think I…"

Cassie grabbed two large men as they passed her.

"You two, help this guy open the doors. Your brother will be fine on his own, just look at him. Go."

Toby ran off with the gun in his hand, followed by his two muscle men.

Cassie walked back to us.

"Jason, you take the floor two levels up. Cameron, morph gorilla or elephant, and take out the prisons three levels up. Kay, try your tiger morph, but if that doesn't work, here."

She threw the last dracon beam at him.

"Thanks."

Cassie began to morph fat horns, heavy hooves and started to put on weight. Soon enough, an African Cape Buffalo stood before us. Kay had already run off to try his tiger morph, and Jason was heading towards the stairs in the corner.

I focused on morphing gorilla. For some reason, gorilla seems to be my fastest morph. I guess it's because it's a humanoid creature, so it doesn't have to change as drastically as the other animals. I climbed up the stairs to my floor, and walked towards the closest door. The humans started screaming when the first saw me.

(Hello there, this is Mr Friendly Gorilla at your service.)

I gave a quick bow, and the people inside quickly shut up. I rammed my fist into the keypad and ripped out a pile of wires and sparks. Heaving myself against the bars, I managed to slide the door open enough for the people inside to scramble out.

(Your cabin guides will now be pointing out the exits. Please keep in mind that the closest exit may be towards your back.)

I imitated being a member of an aeroplane crew, formally pointing towards the stairs. The people started to follow my guide, but one large man walked in the other direction.

(Hey, dude, don't you see me pointing out the exits, this large hard-to-miss gorilla over here?)

"With all regards, Mr Gorilla, uh, sir, but I think I'll help speed your job for you."

He walked to the next door and wrapped both his hands around the keypad. I watched from a distance as the metal casing started to bend away from the wall as he leaned his weight backwards. With a loud crack, the casing fell off, exposing a bunch of coloured wires and plastic plugs. He grabbed a handful and ripped them out more easily, unlocking the door.

"Come on, guys, help a man out here."

He spoke to the people inside the cage, and together, they slid the door into the wall. People moved outside and headed towards the stairs, but a few more people stayed behind to help the man out. Moving on to the next door, the group of people worked to open the next door, freeing more people, yet even more people stayed behind to help.

(I take it you've got this level covered, then.)

The man nodded back to me and shooed me away.

"Go to another level; we've got this one sorted."

I climbed up to the next level, where Jason was firing his dracon beam into the keypads. A group of men stood waiting, ready to open the door for him.

On the next level, Cassie was working by herself.

(You've finished your level already? But, we've barely started, and there's at least fifty doors a floor!)

(Actually, all it took was one man to help, and then more people joined him. There's a team of people on my floor taking out the doors together.)

I grabbed two men as they walked to the stairs, recently freed by Cassie.

(You two, do you think you could try to open some of these doors? All you need to do is smash the keypad, and then slide the door open. If more people see you helping, they'll join in too.)

The two men nodded, slightly nervous from talking to a telepathic gorilla, but they got to work, tearing open the keypad. I moved up to the next floor and started to open the doors, only opening a few before moving up a level. When seeing people help, more of the prisoners were inspired to help, resulting in a large chain reaction.

Eventually, I was being passed by more groups of humans, looking for the next floor to start opening doors. We collected the humans to gather in the courtyard and in the bottom few floors; there must've been thousands of people. Naturally, we all looked to Cassie for guidance.

(Okay, so, we'll try to find some sort of transport for all you guys, um, the guys said that they found a room with some floating-transporting thing for some zoo animals. Um, guys, did you find any more of those rooms?) She looks to me and Kay

"We didn't try all the rooms," said Kay "could we try looking for some in the security cameras?"

(Good thinking Cam. I'll run up ahead and guide you guys through the place through the intercoms.) Cassie started to demorph, keeping her buffalo head so she could continue talking in thoughspeech. (You guys go battle morphs, and I'll direct you wherever purple-eyes turn up.)

She finished her morph, her black cow lips shrinking into her brown, human mouth.

Shortly after Cassie-osprey flew out of the doors, and we waited patiently for her voice to sound over the intercom.

"Okay, Kay, you take the lead, Cameron take the back. Go out the door we came in, and take a right hand turn straight away. There will be a patrol of two purple-eyes after 100 metres, so Kate, you get ready."

We walked through the labyrinth, Kay protecting us from any assailants from the front, I protecting from any at the back, and Kate and Jason drifting up and down the line wherever they are needed.

"Almost there guys, just take the next right and walk for about three hundred metres, then another right turn and five hundred metres. There are two double doors on either side, split the group in half and move everyone onto the ships. I'm going to morph bird and catch up, so wait for me."

The intercom system switched off. We had only just started to follow Cassie's directions when I heard a terrifying roar from up ahead; a tiger's roar.

The people at the back of the line turned around and passed a message towards me.

"The tiger and the panther are being attacked from the front; they're slowly pushing back the aliens to get to the doors."

(Ask if they need help.)

The people passed the message up the line; a giant game of Chinese whispers. After an agonising wait, they turned around to give the reply.

"Panther is hurt; they want someone to switch out with her."

(Pass along to everyone to move aside.)

I move through the crowd, people splitting to either side of the walls as I run past them. I felt like Moses splitting apart the water. Halfway I come across Jason, morphing out of a three-legged hyena. Kate also runs up, a human holding in her innards as she walks, her blood painting the man's hands.

(Run, Kay is all alone up there.)

I catch up to Kay and throw myself into the fray. Kay had managed to push the battle backwards, and the humans were splitting into two doors, presumably onto the ships out of here.

Cassie and Kate catch up as we finished off the remaining purple-eyes. Kate had already demorphed to her normal self, and Cassie perched her osprey body onto a dead purple-eye. The last of the humans filed through the doors, the last one being the brave man who held in Kate's guts.

(I'll go and activate the first ship. Kate, where's Jason?)

"I don't know, he looked through this door and saw some new alien, and ran after it. I think he was going to acquire it."

(Typical.) I muttered.

(Kate,) Cassie said (find him; bring him to the second carrier.)

Kate ran down the path, morphing back into her panther. She had only run twenty metres until a thick metal door slid behind her, locking her out.

(Kate!) I screamed. I run up to the door and pound my fists against the thick metal, barely making a dent.

(There's no key panel.)

(It's no use. You guys go on ahead, at least trigger the first carrier. I'll morph rhino and-)

A large thump sounded against the door, causing Kay to make a very unmanly shriek.

(I'm okay, I'll have to find Jason and get a way around. If I'm not back in ten minutes, leave without us, we'll find out own way off this place.)

(No! we can't, Cassie, Cameron, morph something heavy! We can get through this!) Kay ran up to the door and scratched at the edges.

(No, Kay, you heard her.) I say (She's probably out of thought speech range by now. She can handle herself, so can Jason. We have to follow what Cassie says.)

Cassie flies to the first carrier, now fully loaded with humans. After activating it, she walks us back to the other carrier and draws an imaginary line in the doorway.

(Hold this line,) she says (In ten minutes, we'll have to leave. Jason and Kate will find their own way off, Kate's a smart person, she'll know what to do.)

(We can't do that!)

(We have to.)

(We can go find her!)

(No, she said the orders herself. Waiting for longer is pointless, she'll assume we've left, so there wouldn't be any point of her returning to this point.)

I turn to Kay.

(Cassie has a point. Kate has to assume we follow her orders.)

Kay doesn't say anything, but scrunches up his striped face in disgust at his helplessness. He paws the ground and watches the doorway, ready to take out his anger on the first alien to walk through. He doesn't get the chance.

(Ten minutes, guys! Everyone get on board the carrier!)

We walk back to Cassie on the carrier, purposely walking slowly to leave Kate more time to come back. She doesn't.

(She'll make it.) I say.

(She's strong,) Says Kay (there's nothing to worry about.)

The carrier lifts itself off the ground and out of the mothership. We watch the mothership disappear above us as we sink to Earth.

(We have three hours until it leaves Earth.) Says Cassie.

The ship roars, and fiery jets spurt out of the side. The ship slowly starts to move away from us, picking up its pace.

(Is it supposed to be doing that?)

(I don't think it's moving out of the atmosphere, just to a different location. Hopefully it will still leave in a few hours.)

We watch the ship as it rapidly speeds up, quickly moving out of site into the horizon.

(Good luck, guys.) I say.


	20. Chapter 19

CHAPTER 19:

**KATE**

The thick metal door slides behind me, hissing as it clicks into place. Startled, I press my back against the cool surface to complete morph to panther, the black fur creeping around my growing muscles, taking over every nook in my body like black moss on a forgotten temple. I'm a death-creature of the shadows, but in this illuminated tunnel, I feel horribly vulnerable.

Quickly, I scan the shiny walls and matching door, checking for an opening, a way to go back the way I came. All I'm greeted with is flat grey surfaces, reflecting a melded black cat back at me, but no door handles, buttons or controll pads. I call out to the others through the door.

(It's no use. You guys go on ahead, at least trigger the first carrier. I'll morph rhino and-)

I'm interrupted as a golden arm slams into the door, right next to my head, the alien's wrist-blade sinking into the metal. I speedily react to the attack by pulling back, snapping my jaws around the alien's neck, running on the panther's instincts. My attacker slumps down onto the floor, purple blood leaking from its neck.

I hear footsteps echoing in the distance. Marching footsteps.

(I'm okay, I'll have to find Jason and get a way around. If I'm not back in ten minutes, leave without us, we'll find out own way off this place.)

(No! we can't, Cassie, Cameron, morph something heavy! We can-) I run out of thoughtspeech range before Kay's breakdown would infect me. I cannot risk emotion getting in the way of survival. I need to become the warrior Cassie is. I need to find Jason.

I turn a corner, following my sensitive ears as they pinpoint the sounds of explosions and lazerbeams. eventually, I reach the backs of a squadron of purple-eyes, turned away from me to focus on, presumeably, Jason. A burning stench reaches my nostrils, overloaded weapons discharging a smokey stench.

(Jason! Are you okay? We only have about seven minutes until the others leave.) I cry out through the warfare. I recieve no answer.

(Jason!) I try again, but still no reply. The aliens havent noticed me, but they still havent moved in to Jason's area. Something has to be holding them up.

One of the aliens at the back, a slightly shorter but stockier brute turns around. I search for a place to hide, but the tunnel is too open and well lit, I'm stuck out in the open corridor, nowhere to disappear.

He notices me straight away, his purple mismatched eyes of bronze and skin focusing on the giant cat in the spaceship. I prepare myself to dodge a few dracon blasts, I'm too far away to attack or retreat into a different corridor. Surprisingly, his dracon beam stays pointed at the floor, and instead the alien walks over to the wall, reaching out with his free hand.

His hand connects with the wall, or rather, a keypad and begins to type in a complex code with well practised fingers. I'm too late to react as he rectracts his fingers and another door slides in from the roof, cutting me off from the battle.

Running up to the door, I find myself in a similar scenario as before; cut off from my team mates by another lousy door. I do my quick scan for handles, buttons, and keypads. I lock on to a red glowing panel protruding from the left wall, a keypad.

Rearing back on my hind legs, I swipe at the keypad with my claws, desperate to open the doors. I don't care that I'll have to deal with the aliens on the other side; Jason needs me, and I don't want to be cut off from my friends again.

Another swipe with my claw, but still no damage. The keypad just taunts me; barely a scratch on its metal casing.

(Kate! You still there?) It's Jason.

(Jason! Thank god you're alive! Where have you been? I'm stuck, there's this door, it just slid in the way!)

(The keypad is: Five, six, zero, eight, three, two, three, six, one, three, three, then draw three and a half circles counter clockwise, then one and a quarter circles clockwise. Sorry about leaving you, I had to go human to get this sweet arse alien morph.)

I try my best, but I can't use the keypad presicely with my padded paws. I need to demorph to human.

(Wait, hold up, I need to demorph.)

I quickly morph back into my human self, and Jason keeps repeating the code into my head, imprinting it into my memory.

I punch in the numbers and the buttons slide away, revealing a large touchscreen panel. a small dot blinks at the top of the screen.

"Three and a half counter, one and a quarter clockwise." I mutter to myself, then touch the dot with my index finger. Imagining a clock, I pull back the dot in three circles and finish at six o'clock. I switch direction and make a full circle before taking my finger off the screen at nine o'clock. The metal door quickly slides open.

"It's open!" I celebrate, "Oh, wait, it's open..." The aliens on the other side of the door turn to face me, only two metres away from a defenceless human.

(It's open now, good job, Kate, I have a plan now.)

I raise my hand and close my eyes, awaiting the imminent blast of dracon beams, when I hear a monkey. Two monkeys. More monkeys. Did Jason manage to morph multiple animals?

The purple-eyes are suddenly faced with two situations; a defenceless girl to the back, or what sounded like a pack of rabid monkeys and Jason to the front. Naturally, they turned to protect themselves from the monkeys.

The pack of alien-monkeys tore through the crowd of purple eyes, leaping from face to face, tearing at scaly skin and blinding the aliens. The ferocious monkeys made quick work of the purple-eyes, too small to hit by dracon beam, and massing on them, overtaking the aliens in seconds.

What was controlling these animals? What would stop them from attacking me? A monkey landed at my feet, staring curiously at me. He was larger than an average monkey, sitting about three feet tall, probably four feet if it stood up fully. It had a long tail, similar to a spidermonkeys, curling around its feet. It was completely covered in slightly different shades of tan fur, darker brown on the feet, lighter brown on the stomach and neck. The head was reminded me of a white-faced capuchin monkey, although much larger, and with larger fangs.

The monkey turned around and grabbed a passing monkey by the tail, hauling him in with four hands, an extra pair of arms revealing themselves, cleverly concealed in the thick fur under the original arms.

My monkey friend handed out the second monkey to me, and as its arm was outstreched, i noticed what appeared to be a webbing of loose skin, joining the wrist to the ankle of the bottom feet.

(Come on, morph up, Kate.)

"Jason?" It appeared the monkey was Jason after all.

Jason didn't reply, just shook the monkey by the tail in front of me. I reached out and took the alien by the hands, acquiring the monkey through it's fingertips. I took the time to study the delicate fingers, and I was greeted with another biological surprise; the ends of the fingertips seemed to be open hollow tubes, and I could see all the way up the fingers to the second joint.

(think of those as spiderman-hands, you can walk on walls with them like miniture vaccum cleaners, but that's not the best thing that these guys can do. Come on, I want to find a place to try it out.)

"Jason, the others are leaving in a few minutes, we have to find a way to meet them, or find our own way, or blow up in four hours!"

(Right, so, I'll show you the monkey morph afterwards.)

"Deal." I started morphing the extra-terrestrial monkey.

We continued with the pack of monkeys for a while, we had no direction to follow, so we figured we'd follow our species. It was only when I saw my bloodied footprints that I recognised where we were.

(Jason! we passed through here when my guts were spilling out, just follow these footprints to the others.)

We split off from the group of aliens and followed by bloodied cat-prints. Jason kept on humming 'follow the yellow brick road' in thoughtspeech, and I was finding the situation very creepy.

Eventually, we came across the door, the one that shut me off before. luckily, it was opened again.

(Come on, we might still catch them.)

I raced over to the last door, the one that was supposed to house the carrier and opened the door. I was greeted by the rushing ocean underneath me, miles below.

(Wheres the floor, Kate?)

(We're too late.) I replied.

(What now?)

(We find another way off this ship.)

(What about here? We could fly out of this hole.)

(And land where, Jason? In the water? We could be miles away from any land.)

(Then, we'll wait for land. As soon as we see land, we'll jump then.)

(Two hours, then we find another way off this ship, like, an escape pod or something.)

(Deal.)

We looked around for somewhere to wait, somewhere sheltered and hidden.

(Hey Kate, look here,) said Jason.

Hanging off the opposite door was a black backpack, looped around the doorhandle. a piece of paper was stuck inside the zipper.

I ran over to it and pulled the paper free.

_Kate. Goodluck with finding Jason, we're leaving now. Inside is some alien tech we stole, some food and things we could get from the humans we rescued, and some stuff from my toolbelt you could find in handy. -C_

We sat down in the doorway and waited, watching the ocean fly by through the doorway opposite us.


End file.
